喜樂美語

You can think of it as something that has not been carried all the way through to the end. Latin per- (through) + facere (to make) gives perfect = 'made all the way through'; put im- (not) in front and you get a thing whose making stopped short — the vase with a crack in the glaze, the paint that never reached the corner.

「做到一半、沒有走完全程的東西」。perfect 的拉丁底層是 per-（穿過、到底）加 facere（做），本來的意思是「一路做到完」；前面加上表示否定的 im-，就變成「沒有做到完」。所以 imperfect 不是「壞掉」，而是「還缺一塊」：釉面上有一道裂痕的花瓶、油漆沒刷到牆角、翻譯少了一句話——東西在那裡，但整個過程停在還沒完成的地方，因此比那個完整版差一點。

From the word’s history

Latin perfectus (per- 'through' + facere 'to make') = carried through to completion; im- negates it, so imperfect = not carried through.

拉丁文 perfectus 由 per-（穿過、徹底）加 facere（做）構成，意思是「做到底、完成了」；im- 是否定前綴，im- + perfect 就成了「沒做到底」。這條線索同時解釋了兩個現代用法：東西「還缺一塊」，以及文法上動作「還沒結束」。

Wiktionary etymology tree supplied in the payload (PIE *né → Latin im-; PIE *per- → Latin per-; PIE *dʰeh₁- / *dʰeh₁k- → Latin facere), consistent with standard Latin perfectus < perficere.

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

容易混在一起的字在訂閱裡。容易混在一起的字需要訂閱帳號。

同家族的字

比較級 more imperfect最高級 most imperfect

意思相近

flawedpast continuousfaultypast progressiveincomplete

用法接近

defectivepast tensepartialcontinuous formunfinished

意思相反

perfectflawless

原始詞典資料8 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

imperfectadj/ɪmˈpɜː(ɹ)fɪkt/

  • 1

    Not perfect.

    • Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect.
    • Nothing imperfet or deficient left Of all that he Created.
  • 2

    biologybotanynatural-sciencesUnisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.

  • 3

    biologynatural-sciencestaxonomyKnown or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.

  • 4

    grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsRepresenting a continuing or repeated action.

  • 5

    obsoleteLacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.

    • When the prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lord's judgment, and the fearful sentence of an angry Judge, he was not able to express it, but stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person.

imperfectnoun/ɪmˈpɜː(ɹ)fɪkt/

  • 1

    Something having a minor flaw.

  • 2

    grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsA tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.

imperfectverb/ɪmpə(ɹ)ˈfɛkt/

  • 1

    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.

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。