Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To mar or spoil the appearance or surface of; disfigure.
  • transitive verb To impair the usefulness, value, or influence of.
  • transitive verb Obsolete To obliterate; destroy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb 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
  • transitive verb obsolete To destroy; to make null.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
  • verb To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
  • verb heraldry To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb mar or spoil the appearance of

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English defacen, from Old French desfacier : des-, de- + face, face; see face.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English, "to obliterate," from Old French desfacier ("mutilate, destroy, disfigure"), from des- ("away from") (see dis-) + Vulgar Latin *facia

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