Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To mar or spoil the appearance or shape of; deform.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Disfigurement; deformity.
  • To mar the external figure of; impair the shape or form of; injure the beauty, symmetry, or excellence of; deface; deform, either actually or by incongruous addition.
  • To carve: said of a peacock.
  • To disguise, especially by putting on inferior habiliments.
  • Synonyms Cripple, Mangle, etc. See mutilate.

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

  • transitive verb To mar the figure of; to render less complete, perfect, or beautiful in appearance; to deface; to deform.
  • noun obsolete Disfigurement; deformity.

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

  • verb Change the appearance of something/someone to the negative.

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 disfiguren, from Old French desfigurer : des-, dis- + figure, figure (from Latin figūra, shape; see dheigh- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman desfigurer

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