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Defect vs Paucity - What's the difference?

defect | paucity |

As nouns the difference between defect and paucity

is that defect is a fault or malfunction while paucity is fewness in number; too few.

As a verb defect

is to abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.

defect

English

(wikipedia defect)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A fault or malfunction.
  • a defect''' in the ear or eye; a '''defect''' in timber or iron; a '''defect of memory or judgment
  • * Macaulay
  • Among boys little tenderness is shown to personal defects .
  • * '>citation
  • The quantity or amount by which anything falls short.
  • * Davies
  • Errors have been corrected, and defects supplied.
  • (math) A part by which a figure or quantity is wanting or deficient.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.
  • * 2013 May 23, , " British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):
  • Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect . In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.”

    Derived terms

    * defection * defector

    paucity

    English

    Noun

  • Fewness in number; too few.
  • * 1915 , , The Golden Slipper , problem 7:
  • But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.
  • * 2006 , Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, " Uncle Sam Wants You," Time , 13 July:
  • Your tax refund might be late, owing to a paucity of number crunchers.
  • A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
  • * 1898 , , "At the Appetite-Cure":
  • Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food.
  • * 1915 , , Michael O'Halloran , ch. 12:
  • Here is where the paucity of our language is made manifest.

    Synonyms

    * dearth, scantiness, scarcity