Perfection

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /pɚˈfɛk.ʃən/

Definitions

1. The state of being completely flawless, free from any errors or faults
2. A condition in which something is without imperfection or any form of deficiency
3. The quality of having no mistakes, defects, or shortcomings in any aspect

Etymology: Perfection comes from the Latin "perfectio," a noun built from "perficere," meaning "to finish" or "to carry through to completion." The original sense was closer to completeness than to flawlessness: something was perfect when it had been fully made or carried out, with nothing left undone. The idea of an absence of faults grew out of that notion of a finished job. The word passed into English through Old French "perfection," and Middle English speakers wrote it as "perfeccioun." It arrived with the wider stock of Latin-derived vocabulary that flowed into English after the Norman Conquest, and it displaced the native Old English word "fulfremednes," which meant something like "fulfilment" or "completeness." English thus swapped a homegrown term for a learned import whose root sense of finishing had already been carried through by its Latin ancestors.

Synonyms: completeness, flawlessness, excellence, ideal, perfectionism

Antonyms: imperfection, flaw, defect, shortcoming, incompleteness