Definition of fault

• n. - Defect; want; lack; default.
• n. - Anything that fails, that is wanting, or that impairs excellence; a failing; a defect; a blemish.
• n. - A moral failing; a defect or dereliction from duty; a deviation from propriety; an offense less serious than a crime.
• n. - A dislocation of the strata of the vein.
• n. - In coal seams, coal rendered worthless by impurities in the seam; as, slate fault, dirt fault, etc.
• n. - A lost scent; act of losing the scent.
• n. - Failure to serve the ball into the proper court.
• v. t. - To charge with a fault; to accuse; to find fault with; to blame.
• v. t. - 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.
• v. i. - To err; to blunder, to commit a fault; to do wrong.