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Subvert vs Deface - What's the difference?

subvert | deface | Related terms |

Subvert is a related term of deface.


As verbs the difference between subvert and deface

is that subvert is to overturn from the foundation; to overthrow; to ruin utterly while deface is to damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.

As a noun subvert

is an advertisement created by subvertising.

subvert

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) subverten, from (etyl) subvertir, from (etyl) .

Verb

(en verb)
  • To overturn from the foundation; to overthrow; to ruin utterly.
  • * Shakespeare
  • He razeth your cities, and subverts your towns.
  • * John Locke
  • This would subvert the principles of all knowledge.
  • To pervert, as the mind, and turn it from the truth; to corrupt; to confound.
  • A dictator stays in power only as long as he manages to subvert the will of his people.
  • To upturn convention from the foundation by undermining it (literally, to turn from beneath).
  • Derived terms
    * subversion * subversive

    Etymology 2

    , by analogy with advert.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An advertisement created by subvertising.
  • Synonyms
    * subvertisement

    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