Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To mar or spoil the appearance or surface of; disfigure.
- v. To impair the usefulness, value, or influence of.
- v. Obsolete To obliterate; destroy.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To mar the face or surface of; disfigure; spoil the appearance of: as, to deface a monument.
- To impair or efface; blot or blot out; erase; obliterate; cancel: as, to deface an inscription; to deface a record.
Wiktionary
- v. To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
- v. To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
- v. heraldry To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To destroy or mar the face or external appearance of; to disfigure; to injure, spoil, or mar, by effacing or obliterating important features or portions of
- v. obsolete To destroy; to make null.
WordNet 3.0
- v. mar or spoil the appearance of
Etymologies
- Middle English, "to obliterate," from Old French desfacier ("mutilate, destroy, disfigure"), from des- ("away from") (see dis-) + Vulgar Latin *facia (Wiktionary)
- Middle English defacen, from Old French desfacier : des-, de- + face, face; see face. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“a collision course with nature – to deface or not to deface, that is the question.”
“Lots of Christians purposely "deface" their own Bibles.”
“It will be observed, that the word "deface," employed in this statute, actually covers the marking of margins by any reader, all such marking constituting a defacement within the meaning of the law.”
“Ashurnasirbal calls upon the triad not to listen to the prayers of such as deface his monuments.”
“Eileen Leuby, a resident of James River Road who also serves as president of the New Albany Chamber of Commerce, said the T-Mobile unit atop the AEP tower would "deface" the tower and the surrounding area.”
“But one objector from Solvang in California, said that the plans would "deface" the tarn's landscape.”
“You, however, seem to have found need of twisting my words to make it seem as though I were letting those who pollute and/or deface the landscape in any other way off the hook.”
“But far less talented graffiti vandals won't deface the work of professional graffiteros.”
“But like the hookers plying their trade in mini skirt collectives along infamous thoroughfares such as Sullivan and Tlalpan, the rule of law doesn't seem to stand in the way of anyone with a can of spray paint inclined to deface a wall.”
“Christopher Hitchens decided to deface a sign bearing a swastika in Beirut.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deface’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Noteworthy Words
Here I have in mind a list of words that could be spelled with only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G--and thus could also be played as a tune on the piano.
face, ace, bag, cage, bad, fad, fade, fee, gee, beg, fed, deaf and 98 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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I am : violent
Destructive verbs that speed up entropy. (Still working on definition of what I want; may add adjectives later.)
destroy, wreck, thrash, trash, beat up, annihilate, exterminate, disembowel, eviscerate, disintegrate, explode, bomb and 41 more...
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About Face
face, about face, about-face, facet, faced, face card, face value, face facts, facetious, Janus-faced, Boniface, volte-face and 70 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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GRE
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abhor, abjure, abrasive, abridge, abstain, acme, activism, adhere, admonish and 195 more...
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GMAT
part of speech, frown, brow, immensely, immense, incomprehensible, toil, concision, concise, proper noun, hyphenated, dash and 190 more...
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worddom
put words in their place
theca, wisdom, kingdom, freedom, boredom, seldom, martyrdom, abdomen, doom, samhita, duma, dumka and 151 more...
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What Do You Mean @
What Abt these ... :)
somber, self effacing, conundrum, outlandish, mesmerize, endemic, shelve, fledgling, acolyte, absurd, rampant, narcissist and 163 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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6 narrative descriptive
inveterate, insipid, puerile, petulant, recalcitrant, assiduous, indigent, incorrigible, deface, privation, intimation, torrid and 52 more...
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