Library / English Dictionary

FAULT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention

Example:

I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults

Synonyms:

error; fault; mistake

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

nonaccomplishment; nonachievement (an act that does not achieve its intended goal)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fault"):

renege; revoke (the mistake of not following suit when able to do so)

betise; folly; foolishness; imbecility; stupidity (a stupid mistake)

balls-up; ballup; cockup; mess-up (something badly botched or muddled)

bloomer; blooper; blunder; boner; boo-boo; botch; bungle; flub; foul-up; fuckup; pratfall (an embarrassing mistake)

omission; skip (a mistake resulting from neglect)

lapse; oversight (a mistake resulting from inattention)

offside ((sport) the mistake of occupying an illegal position on the playing field (in football, soccer, ice hockey, field hockey, etc.))

miscue; parapraxis; slip; slip-up (a minor inadvertent mistake usually observed in speech or writing or in small accidents or memory lapses etc.)

distortion (the mistake of misrepresenting the facts)

miscalculation; misestimation; misreckoning (a mistake in calculating)

incursion (the mistake of incurring liability or blame)

confusion; mix-up (a mistake that results from taking one thing to be another)

blot; smear; smirch; spot; stain (an act that brings discredit to the person who does it)

Derivation:

fault (put or pin the blame on)

faulty (characterized by errors; not agreeing with a model or not following established rules)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(sports) a serve that is illegal (e.g., that lands outside the prescribed area)

Example:

he served too many double faults

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

serve; service ((sports) a stroke that puts the ball in play)

Domain category:

lawn tennis; tennis (a game played with rackets by two or four players who hit a ball back and forth over a net that divides the court)

badminton (a game played on a court with light long-handled rackets used to volley a shuttlecock over a net)

squash; squash rackets; squash racquets (a game played in an enclosed court by two or four players who strike the ball with long-handled rackets)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fault"):

double fault ((tennis) two successive faults in serving resulting in the loss of the point)

footfault (a fault that occurs when the server in tennis fails to keep both feet behind the baseline)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Responsibility for a bad situation or event

Example:

it was John's fault

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

responsibility; responsibleness (a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one's conduct)

Derivation:

fault (put or pin the blame on)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The quality of being inadequate or falling short of perfection

Example:

he knew his own faults much better than she did

Synonyms:

demerit; fault

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

worth (the quality that renders something desirable or valuable or useful)

Sense 5

Meaning:

(electronics) equipment failure attributable to some defect in a circuit (loose connection or insulation failure or short circuit etc.)

Example:

it took much longer to find the fault than to fix it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

breakdown; equipment failure (a cessation of normal operation)

Domain category:

electronics (the branch of physics that deals with the emission and effects of electrons and with the use of electronic devices)

Sense 6

Meaning:

(geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other

Example:

he studied the faulting of the earth's crust

Synonyms:

break; fault; faulting; fracture; geological fault; shift

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

cleft; crack; crevice; fissure; scissure (a long narrow opening)

Meronyms (parts of "fault"):

fault line ((geology) line determined by the intersection of a geological fault and the earth's surface)

Domain category:

geology (a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fault"):

inclined fault (a geological fault in which one side is above the other)

strike-slip fault (a geological fault in which one of the adjacent surfaces appears to have moved horizontally)

Instance hyponyms:

Denali Fault (a major open geological fault in Alaska)

San Andreas Fault (a major geological fault in California; runs from San Diego to San Francisco; the source of serious earthquakes)

Sense 7

Meaning:

An imperfection in an object or machine

Example:

if there are any defects you should send it back to the manufacturer

Synonyms:

defect; fault; flaw

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("fault" is a kind of...):

imperfection; imperfectness (the state or an instance of being imperfect)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fault"):

blister (a flaw on a surface resulting when an applied substance does not adhere (as an air bubble in a coat of paint))

bug; glitch (a fault or defect in a computer program, system, or machine)

hole (a fault)

Derivation:

faulty (having a defect)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Put or pin the blame on

Synonyms:

blame; fault

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "fault" is one way to...):

accuse; charge (blame for, make a claim of wrongdoing or misbehavior against)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody with something

Derivation:

fault (a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention)

fault (responsibility for a bad situation or event)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Mercury’s great valley is bound by two large fault scarps—cliff-like landforms that resemble stair steps.

(‘Great Valley’ Found on Mercury, NASA)

No one can fault you for that, for you would be showing respect.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

I hear some of our sea Yahoos find fault with my sea-language, as not proper in many parts, nor now in use.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She could always follow her father and mother, her brothers and Olney; wherefore, when she could not follow Martin, she believed the fault lay with him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was James’s own fault. You know that yourself. He was too self-willed for the job.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is not his fault, I promise you, that you should be left in the lurch.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Thy father, shaveling, with all his faults, had a man's heart; and there were few who could look him in the eyes on the day of his anger.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That is his main fault, but on the whole he’s a good worker.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault of mine.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)