imperfect

Etymology

From Middle English imperfit, from Old French imparfit (modern French imparfait), from Latin imperfectus. Spelling modified 15c. to conform Latin etymology. See im- + perfect.

adj

1. not perfect
2. (botany) unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.
3. (taxonomy) known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
4. (obsolete) lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.
5. (grammar) belonging to a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous

noun

1. something having a minor flaw
2. (grammar) a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous

verb

1. (transitive) to make imperfect
   1651, John Donne, Letter to Henry Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, edited by Charles Edmund Merrill, Jr., New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1910, I write to you from the Spring Garden, whither I withdrew my self to think of this; and the intensenesse of my thinking ends in this, that by my help Gods work should be imperfected, if by any means I resisted the amasement.
   Time, which perfects some things, imperfects also others. 1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 43
   […] such was their desire for greater rhythmic freedom that composers began to use red notes as well. […] Their value was […] restricted at first, for redness implies the imperfecting of a note which is perfect if black […] 1962, Alec Harman, Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West, Oxford University Press, Part I, Chapter 5, p. 126