defacement

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English deface

Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥

Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom

Proto-Italic *-mentom

Latin -mentum

Old French -mentbor.

Middle English -ment

English -ment

English defacement

From deface + -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈfeɪsmənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪsmənt

Noun

defacement (countable and uncountable, plural defacements)

1. An act of defacing; an instance of visibly marring or disfiguring something.

   Some consider the defacement of the Sphinx to be the most egregious crime of Napolean's campaigns.

2. An act of voiding or devaluing; nullification of the face value.

   The soldiers found a variety of creative uses for their payment scrip after its defacement to scrap paper; some used it as toilet paper.

3. (heraldry, vexillology) A symbol added to a flag or coat of arms to change it or make it different from another.

Usage notes

• Defacement generally has negative valence (that is, it is a bad thing), except in heraldry, where it is a neutral term.

Synonyms

• (act of defacing): disfiguration, graffiti, obliteration, vandalism
• (nullification of face value): cancellation, devaluation

Translations

marring, disfiguring

• Catalan: desfiguració f
• Finnish: turmeleminen (fi)
• Irish: lot m, milleadh m

voiding, nullification

• Catalan: devaluació f
• Finnish: mitätöinti (fi)

added symbol

• Finnish: lisäys (fi)