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Detriment vs Deface - What's the difference?

detriment | deface |

As a noun detriment

is harm, hurt, damage.

As a verb deface is

to damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.

detriment

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Harm, hurt, damage.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1872 , author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky , title=The Possessed , chapter=7 citation , passage=“But marriage in secret, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch — a fatal secret. I receive money from you, and I'm suddenly asked the question, 'What's that money for?' My hands are tied; I cannot answer to the detriment of my sister, to the detriment of the family honour.”}}
  • (UK, obsolete) A charge made to students and barristers for incidental repairs of the rooms they occupy.
  • Usage notes

    * Often used in the form "to someone's detriment".

    Synonyms

    * harm * hurt * illfare * damage

    Antonyms

    * benefit

    deface

    English

    Verb

    (defac)
  • To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
  • * 1869:
  • That wondrous frame where melody began / Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.
  • To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
  • He defaced the I.O.U. notes by scrawling "void" over them.
  • * 1776:
  • One-and-twenty worn and defaced' shillings, however, were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and ' defaced too, but seldom so much so.
  • (heraldry, flags) To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.
  • You get the Finnish state flag by defacing the national flag with the state coat of arms placed in the middle of the cross.

    Synonyms

    * (damage in a conspicuous way ): disfigure, mar, obliterate, scar, vandalize * (degrade the face value ): cancel, devalue, nullify, void

    Derived terms

    * defacement

    See also

    * efface