defeature

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfiːtjʊə(ɹ)/

Etymology 1

From defeat +‎ -ure.

Noun

defeature

1. Defeat, overthrow, ruin.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     This mischiefe framd, for their first loves defeature

Etymology 2

From de- +‎ feature.

Verb

defeature (third-person singular simple present defeatures, present participle defeaturing, simple past and past participle defeatured)

1. (rare) To deform.

Noun

defeature (plural defeatures)

1. Disfigurement, defacement, deformation.
   • c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     What ruins are in me that can be found, / By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground / of my defeatures.

   • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 9:

     But no discovery was made, for no volley of reproach was uttered, and could they have looked in their mother's face they might have seen that strange defeatures were written there.