Fault

7 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Fault \Fault\, n. [OE. faut, faute, F. faute (cf. It., Sp., &
     Pg. falta), fr. a verb meaning to want, fail, freq., fr. L.
     fallere to deceive. See {Fail}, and cf. {Default}.]
     1. Defect; want; lack; default.
        [1913 Webster]
  


              One, it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call
              my friend.                            --Shak.
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     2. Anything that fails, that is wanting, or that impairs
        excellence; a failing; a defect; a blemish.
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              As patches set upon a little breach
              Discredit more in hiding of the fault. --Shak.
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     3. A moral failing; a defect or dereliction from duty; a
        deviation from propriety; an offense less serious than a
        crime.
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     4. (Geol. & Mining)
        (a) A dislocation of the strata of the vein.
        (b) In coal seams, coal rendered worthless by impurities
            in the seam; as, slate fault, dirt fault, etc.
            --Raymond.
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     5. (Hunting) A lost scent; act of losing the scent.
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              Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled,
              With much ado, the cold fault cleary out. --Shak.
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     6. (Tennis) Failure to serve the ball into the proper court.
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     7. (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.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  
     8. (Geol. & Mining) A dislocation caused by a slipping of
        rock masses along a plane of facture; also, the dislocated
        structure resulting from such slipping.
  
     Note: The surface along which the dislocated masses have
           moved is called the
  
     {fault plane}. When this plane is vertical, the fault is a
  
     {vertical fault}; when its inclination is such that the
        present relative position of the two masses could have
        been produced by the sliding down, along the fault plane,
        of the mass on its upper side, the fault is a
  
     {normal fault}, or {gravity fault}. When the fault plane is
        so inclined that the mass on its upper side has moved up
        relatively, the fault is then called a
  
     {reverse fault} (or {reversed fault}), {thrust fault}, or
     {overthrust fault}. If no vertical displacement has resulted,
        the fault is then called a
  
     {horizontal fault}. The linear extent of the dislocation
        measured on the fault plane and in the direction of
        movement is the
  
     {displacement}; the vertical displacement is the
  
     {throw}; the horizontal displacement is the
  
     {heave}. The direction of the line of intersection of the
        fault plane with a horizontal plane is the
  
     {trend} of the fault. A fault is a
  
     {strike fault} when its trend coincides approximately with
        the strike of associated strata (i.e., the line of
        intersection of the plane of the strata with a horizontal
        plane); it is a
  
     {dip fault} when its trend is at right angles to the strike;
        an
  
     {oblique fault} when its trend is oblique to the strike.
        Oblique faults and dip faults are sometimes called
  
     {cross faults}. A series of closely associated parallel
        faults are sometimes called
  
     {step faults} and sometimes
  
     {distributive faults}.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  
     {At fault}, unable to find the scent and continue chase;
        hence, in trouble or embarrassment, and unable to proceed;
        puzzled; thrown off the track.
  
     {To find fault}, to find reason for blaming or complaining;
        to express dissatisfaction; to complain; -- followed by
        with before the thing complained of; but formerly by at.
        "Matter to find fault at." --Robynson (More's Utopia).
  
     Syn: -- Error; blemish; defect; imperfection; weakness;
          blunder; failing; vice.
  
     Usage: {Fault}, {Failing}, {Defect}, {Foible}. A fault is
            positive, something morally wrong; a failing is
            negative, some weakness or falling short in a man's
            character, disposition, or habits; a defect is also
            negative, and as applied to character is the absence
            of anything which is necessary to its completeness or
            perfection; a foible is a less important weakness,
            which we overlook or smile at. A man may have many
            failings, and yet commit but few faults; or his faults
            and failings may be few, while his foibles are obvious
            to all. The faults of a friend are often palliated or
            explained away into mere defects, and the defects or
            foibles of an enemy exaggerated into faults. "I have
            failings in common with every human being, besides my
            own peculiar faults; but of avarice I have generally
            held myself guiltless." --Fox. "Presumption and
            self-applause are the foibles of mankind."
            --Waterland.
            [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Fault \Fault\, v. i.
     To err; to blunder, to commit a fault; to do wrong. [Obs.]
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           If after Samuel's death the people had asked of God a
           king, they had not faulted.              --Latimer.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Fault \Fault\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Faulted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Faulting}.]
     1. To charge with a fault; to accuse; to find fault with; to
        blame. [Obs.]
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              For that I will not fault thee.       --Old Song.
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     2. (Geol.) To interrupt the continuity of (rock strata) by
        displacement along a plane of fracture; -- chiefly used in
        the p. p.; as, the coal beds are badly faulted.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  fault
       n 1: responsibility for a bad situation or event; "it was John's
            fault"
       2: (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the
          displacement of one side with respect to the other; "they
          built it right over a geological fault" [syn: {geological
          fault}, {shift}, {fracture}, {break}]
       3: the quality of being inadequate or falling short of
          perfection; "they discussed the merits and demerits of her
          novel"; "he knew his own faults much better than she did"
          [syn: {demerit}] [ant: {merit}]
       4: a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or
          inattention; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to
          point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in
          spite of his grammatical faults" [syn: {mistake}, {error}]
       5: an imperfection in a device or machine; "if there are any
          defects you should send it back to the manufacturer" [syn:
           {defect}, {flaw}]
       6: (sports) a serve that is illegal (e.g., that lands outside
          the prescribed area); "he served too many double faults"
       7: (electronics) equipment failure attributable to some defect
          in a circuit (loose connection or insulation failure or
          short circuit etc.); "it took much longer to find the
          fault than to fix it"
       v : put or pin the blame on [syn: {blame}] [ant: {absolve}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  302 Moby Thesaurus words for "fault":
     aberrancy, aberration, abysm, abyss, accountability, accountable,
     accuse, answerability, answerable, arroyo, at fault, atrocity,
     bad habit, besetting sin, birthmark, blackhead, blame, blameworthy,
     bleb, blemish, blister, blunder, boner, boo-boo, boob, box canyon,
     breach, break, bug, bulla, call into question, call to account,
     canyon, carp at, catch, cavity, censure, chap, chasm, check,
     chimney, chink, cicatrix, cleft, clerical error, cleuch, clough,
     col, comedo, corrigendum, coulee, couloir, crack, cranny, crater,
     craze, crevasse, crevice, crime, crime against humanity, criticize,
     culpability, culpable, cut, cwm, deadly sin, defacement, defect,
     defection, defectiveness, deficiency, defile, deformation,
     deformity, delinquency, dell, delusion, demerit, dereliction,
     deviancy, dike, disfiguration, disfigurement, disproportionately,
     distortion, ditch, donga, draw, drawback, enormity, errancy,
     erratum, erroneousness, error, evil, excavation, exceedingly,
     excessively, extremely, failing, failure, fallaciousness, fallacy,
     falseness, falsity, faultiness, faute, faux pas, felony,
     find fault, fissure, flaw, flawedness, flume, foible, fracture,
     frailty, freckle, furrow, fuss, gaffe, gap, gape, gash, gaucherie,
     genocide, goof, gorge, groove, guilt, guilty, guilty act, gulch,
     gulf, gully, hamartia, heavy sin, hemangioma, heresy, heterodoxy,
     hickey, hole, howler, human error, illusion, immoderately,
     imperfection, impropriety, impugn, in the extreme, inadequacy,
     incision, indiscretion, inexpiable sin, infirmity, iniquity,
     injury, injustice, irrationally, joint, keloid, kink, kloof, knock,
     lapse, leak, lentigo, liability, liable, little problem,
     malefaction, malfeasance, malum, milium, minor wrong,
     misapplication, misapprehension, misbehavior, miscalculation,
     miscarriage, misconception, misconduct, misconstruction, miscount,
     misdeal, misdeed, misdemeanor, misdoing, misfeasance,
     misidentification, misinterpretation, misjudgment, misplay,
     misprint, misquotation, misreport, miss, misstatement, mistake,
     misunderstanding, misuse, moat, mole, moral flaw, mortal sin,
     needle scar, nevus, niggle, nonfeasance, notch, nullah, offense,
     omission, onus, opening, outrage, overly, oversight, pass, passage,
     peccadillo, peccancy, perversion, pick at, pick on, pimple, pit,
     pock, pockmark, port-wine mark, port-wine stain, problem, pustule,
     ravine, rent, responsibility, responsible, rift, rime, rupture,
     scab, scar, scissure, scratch, seam, sebaceous cyst,
     self-contradiction, shortcoming, sin, sin of commission,
     sin of omission, sinful act, sinfulness, slip, slit, slot, snag,
     something missing, split, strawberry mark, sty, taint,
     take exception to, to a fault, to blame, tort, track,
     transgression, trench, trespass, trip, twist, typo,
     typographical error, unduly, unorthodoxy, unreasonably, untrueness,
     untruth, untruthfulness, unutterable sin, valley, venial sin,
     verruca, vesicle, vice, void, vulnerable place, wadi, wale, warp,
     wart, weak link, weak point, weak side, weakness, weal, welt, wen,
     whitehead, wrong, wrongness
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  fault
       
          1.  A manifestation of an {error} in {software}.
          A fault, if encountered, may cause a {failure}.
       
          2.  {page fault}.
       
          (1996-05-14)
       
       

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  FAULT, contracts, civil law. An improper act or omission, which arises from 
  ignorance, carelessness, or negligence. The act or omission must not have 
  been meditated, and must have caused some injury to another. Lec. Elem. Sec. 
  783. See Dolus, Negligence. 1 Miles' Rep. 40. 
       2.-1. Faults or negligence are usually divided into, gross, ordinary, 
  and slight: 1. Gross fault or neglect, consists in not observing that care 
  towards others, which a man the least attentive, usually takes of his own 
  affairs. Such fault may, in some cases, afford a presumption of fraud, and 
  in very gross cases it approaches so near, as to be almost undistinguishable 
  from it, especially when the facts seem hardly consistent with an honest 
  intention. But there may be a gross fault without fraud. 2 Str. 1099; Story, 
  Bailm. Sec. 18-22; Toullier, 1. 3, t. 3, Sec. 231. 2. Ordinary faults 
  consist in the omission of that care which mankind generally pay to their 
  own concerns; that is, the want of ordinary diligence. 3. A slight fault 
  consists in the want of that care which very attentive persons take of their 
  own affairs. This fault assimilates itself, and, in some cases, is scarcely 
  distinguishable, from mere accident, or want of foresight. This division has 
  been adopted by common lawyers from the civil law. Although the civilians 
  generally agree in this division, yet they are not without a difference of 
  opinion. See Pothier, Observation generale, sur le precedent Traite, et sur 
  les suivants; printed at the end of his Traite des Obligations, where he 
  cites Accurse, Alciat, Cujas, Duaren, D'Avezan, Vinnius, and Heineccius, in 
  support of this division. On the other side the reader is referred to 
  Thomasius, tom. 2, Dissertationem, pago 1006; Le Brun, cited by Jones, 
  Bailm. 27; and Toullier, Droit Civil Francais, liv. 3, tit. 3, Sec. 231. 
       3.-2. These principles established, different rules have been made as 
  to the responsibilities of parties for their faults in relation to their 
  contracts. They are reduced by Pothier to three. 
       4.-1. In those contracts where the party derives no benefit from his 
  undertaking, he is answerable only for his gross faults. 
       5.-2. In those contracts where the parties have a reciprocal 
  interest, as in the contract of sale, they are responsible for ordinary 
  neglect. 
       6.-3. In those contracts where the party receives the only advantage, 
  as in the case of loan for use, he is answerable for his slight fault. Poth. 
  Observ. Generale; Traite des Oblig. Sec. 142; Jones, Bailm. 119 Story, 
  Bailm. 12. See also Ayliffe, Pand. 108. Civ. C. Lou. 3522; 1 Com. Dig. 41 3; 
  5 Id. 184; Wesk. on Ins. 370.