fault

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A character weakness, especially a minor one.
2. n. Something that impairs or detracts from physical perfection; a defect. See Synonyms at blemish.
3. n. A mistake; an error.
4. n. A minor offense or misdeed.
5. n. Responsibility for a mistake or an offense; culpability. See Synonyms at blame.
6. n. Geology A fracture in the continuity of a rock formation caused by a shifting or dislodging of the earth's crust, in which adjacent surfaces are displaced relative to one another and parallel to the plane of fracture. Also called shift.
7. n. Electronics A defect in a circuit or wiring caused by imperfect connections, poor insulation, grounding, or shorting.
8. n. Sports A bad service, as in tennis.
9. n. Obsolete A lack or deficiency.
10. v. To find error or defect in; criticize or blame.
11. v. Geology To produce a fault in; fracture.
12. v. To commit a mistake or an error.
13. v. Geology To shift so as to produce a fault.
14. idiom. at fault Deserving of blame; guilty: admitted to being at fault.
15. idiom. at fault Confused and puzzled.
16. idiom. find fault To seek, find, and complain about faults; criticize: found fault with his speech.
17. idiom. to a fault To an excessive degree: generous to a fault.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Defect; lack; want; failure. See default.
2. n. A lack; a defect; an imperfection; a failing, blemish, or flaw; any lack or impairment of excellence: applied to things.
3. n. An error or defect of judgment or conduct; any deviation from prudence, rectitude, or duty; any shortcoming, or neglect of care or performance, resulting from inattention, incapacity, or perversity; a wrong tendency, course, or act.
4. n. An occasion of blame or censure; a particular cause for reprehension or disapproval: as, to charge one with a fault, or find fault with one.
5. n. Blame; censure; reproach.
6. n. The act of losing the scent; a lost scent: said of sporting dogs.
7. n. In geology, a severing of the continuity of a body of rock by a break through the mass, attended by movement on one side or the other of the break, so that what were once parts of one continuous stratum are now separated. The amount of displacement of the strata thus occasioned may be a few inches or thousands of feet. Faults of a few feet are, however, the most common. Faults are occasioned by movements of the crust of the earth, and are a part of the complicated phenomena by which mountain - chains are built up, and continents elevated and depressed. See slip, slide, break.
8. n. In tennis, a stroke by which the server fails to drive the ball into the proper part of his opponent's court. See lawn-tennis.
9. n. In telegraphy, a new path opened to a current by any accident; a derived current, or derivation.
10. n. In hunting, thrown off the scent or the trail; unable to find the scent, as dogs.
11. n. Unable to proceed, by reason of some embarrassment or uncertainty; puzzled; out of bearing; astray.
12. n. Synonyms Flaw.
13. n. Misdeed, misdemeanor, transgression, wrong-doing, delinquency, weakness, slip, indiscretion.
14. To lack.
15. To charge with a fault; find fault with; reproach.
16. In geology, to cause a fault in.
17. To scent or see; find out; discover.
18. To be in fault; be wrong; fail.

Wiktionary

1. n. A defect; something that detracts from perfection.
2. n. A mistake or error.
3. n. A weakness of character.
4. n. A minor offense.
5. n. Blame; the responsibility for a mistake.
6. n. seismology A fracture in a rock formation causing a discontinuity
7. n. tennis An illegal serve.
8. n. electrical An abnormal connection in a circuit.
9. v. transitive To criticize, blame or find fault with something or someone.
10. v. intransitive, geology To fracture.
11. v. intransitive To commit a mistake or error.
12. v. intransitive, computing To undergo a page fault.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Defect; want; lack; default.
2. n. Anything that fails, that is wanting, or that impairs excellence; a failing; a defect; a blemish.
3. n. A moral failing; a defect or dereliction from duty; a deviation from propriety; an offense less serious than a crime.
4. n. A dislocation of the strata of the vein.
5. n. In coal seams, coal rendered worthless by impurities in the seam
6. n. (Hunting) A lost scent; act of losing the scent.
7. n. (Tennis) Failure to serve the ball into the proper court.
8. n. (Elec.) A defective point in an electric circuit due to a crossing of the parts of the conductor, or to contact with another conductor or the earth, or to a break in the circuit.
9. n. (Geol. & Mining) A dislocation caused by a slipping of rock masses along a plane of facture; also, the dislocated structure resulting from such slipping.
10. v. obsolete To charge with a fault; to accuse; to find fault with; to blame.
11. v. (Geol.) To interrupt the continuity of (rock strata) by displacement along a plane of fracture; -- chiefly used in the p. p..
12. v. obsolete To err; to blunder, to commit a fault; to do wrong.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other
2. n. responsibility for a bad situation or event
3. n. a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention
4. v. put or pin the blame on
5. n. the quality of being inadequate or falling short of perfection
6. n. (sports) a serve that is illegal (e.g., that lands outside the prescribed area)
7. n. an imperfection in an object or machine
8. n. (electronics) equipment failure attributable to some defect in a circuit (loose connection or insulation failure or short circuit etc.)