faucon 
faucont, fauconert. Obsolete spellings of fal- 
con, full-inn r. Clmucer. 
faugh (fa), inter j. [A mere exclamation; cf. 
foli, fie 1 , phew.] An exclamation of disgust, 
contempt, or abhorrence. 
An emperour's cabinet? 
Faugh, I have known a charnel-house smell sweeter. 
Fletcher (and another"!), Prophetess, ii. 2. 
faujasite (fo'zha-sit), . [Named after a French 
geologist, Fanjas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819).] 
A zeolitic mineral occurring in colorless octa- 
hedral crystals in the amygdaloid of the Kai- 
serstuhl in southern Baden. It is a hydrous sil- 
icate of aluminium, calcium, and sodium. 
faulchiont, An obsolete spelling of falchion. 
faulcont, . An obsolete spelling of falcon. 
fauld (fakl), v. A dialectal (Scotch) form of 
/wMl. 
fauld (fald), n. 1. A dialectal (Scotch) form 
of fold 1 . Specifically 2. The tymp-arch or 
working-arch of a furnace. E. H. Knight. 
fauld-dike (fald'dik), . The dike or fence of 
a sheepfold. [Scotch.] 
He's lifted her over tliefaidd-dyke, 
And speer'd at her sma' leave. 
The Broom of Cowdenknows (Child's Ballads, IV. 47). 
faulkont, faulkonert. Obsolete forms of fal- 
con, falconer. 
fault (fait, formerly fat), n. [Early mod. E. also 
fait, but usually faut, faute (the I being a mod. 
insertion, affecting at first only the spelling; it 
was not sounded till recently) ; < ME. faut, faute 
(in late ME. sometimes spelled faughte), < OF. 
faute, l&terfaulte, earlier falte, F. faute, f., also 
OF. faut, fault, m., = Pr. falta = Sp. Pg. It. 
falta, a lack, fault (cf. OF. "falter, fauter = Sp. 
Pg. foliar = It. faltare, lack), < L. fallere, de- 
ceive, ML. fail : see/ain.] If. Defect; lack; 
want; failure. See default. 
And who-so faille that day, that he be nouthe there, as 
comenaunt ya, he schal paie a pound of wax for is faute. 
English Gilds (E. E. T. S.), p. 34. 
Full wa es mee ! 
Almaste I dye, for fawte of fude. 
Thomas of Ersseldoune (Child's Ballads, 1. 103). 
Is she your cousin, sir ? 
Yes, in truth, forsooth, for fault of a better. 
B. Jonson, Poetaster, ii. 1. 
2. A lack; a defect ; an imperfection ; a fail- 
ing, blemish, or flaw ; any lack or impairment 
of excellence : applied to things. 
Patches, set upon a little breach, 
Discredit more in hiding of the fault. 
Shak., K. John, iv. 2. 
But flnd you faithful friends that will reprove, 
That on your works may look with careful eyes, 
And of your faults be zealous enemies. 
Dryden, tr. of Boileau's Art of Poetry, i. 188. 
Faults in your Person, or your Face, correct. 
Congreve, tr. of Ovid's Art of Love. 
Take, Madam, this poor book of song; 
For tho' the faults were thick as dust 
In vacant chambers, I could trust 
Your kindness. Tennyson, To the Queen. 
3. An error or defect of judgment or conduct; 
any deviation from prudence, rectitude, or 
duty; any shortcoming, or neglect of care or 
performance, resulting from inattention, inca- 
pacity, or perversity ; a wrong tendency, course, 
or act. 
Neither yet let any man curry fauell with him selfe af- 
ter this wise ; the faute is but light, the law is broken in 
nothing but in this parte. J. Udall, On Jas. ii. 
His [Calvin's] nature from a child observed by his own 
parents . . . was prepense to sharpe and severe repre- 
hension where he thought any fait was. 
Quoted in Hooker's Eccles. Polity, Pref., ii., note. 
His [Bacon's] faults were we write it with pain cold- 
ness of heart and meanness of spirit. 
Macaulay, Lord Bacon. 
Tome 
He is M fault who hath no fault at all. 
Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine. 
4. Aii occasion of blame or censure ; a particu- 
lar cause for reprehension or disapproval : as, 
to charge one with a fault, or find fault with 
one. 
Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail, 
Or will you blame, and lay the fault on me ? 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI., ii. 1. 
5f. Blame; censure; reproach. 
O, let me fly, before a prophet's fault. 
Greene and Lodge, Looking Glass for Lond. and Eng. 
6. The act of losing the scent ; a lost scent : 
said of sporting dogs. 
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good 
At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault? 
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound. 
Shak., T. of the S., Ind., i. 
7. In f/eol., a severing of the continuity of a 
body of rock by a break through the mass, at- 
tended by movement on one side or the other 
2157 
of the break, so that what were once parts of 
one continuous stratum are now separated. 
The amount of dig- 
I'l;u t-niL-nt of the 
strata thus occa- 
sioned may be a 
few inches or 
thousands of feet. 
Faults of a few 
feet are, however, 
the most common. 
Faults are occa- 
sioned by move- 
ments of the crust 
of the earth, and 
are a part of the 
complicated phe- 
nomena by which 
mountain - chains 
Section showing displacement of strata by 
a fault, a and a were once a continuous 
mass of rock. 
are built up, and 
continents elevated and depressed. Seeslipl, slide, break. 
Along the flank of the Grampians a great fault runs 
from the North Sea at Stonehaven to the estuary of the 
Clyde, throwing the Old Red Sandstone on end sometimes 
for a distance of two miles from the line of dislocation. 
J. droll, Climate and Cosmology, p. 269. 
8. In tennis, a stroke by which the server fails 
to drive the ball into the proper part of his op- 
ponent's court. See lawn-tennis. 
I would you had been at the tennis court, you should 
have seen me a beat Monsieur Besan, and I gave him fif- 
teen and all his faults. 
Chapman, An Humorous Day's Mirth. 
9. In teleg., a new path opened to a current by 
any accident; a derived current, or derivation. 
In practice, derivations generally arise from the wire 
touching another conductor, such as the ground, a wet 
wall, a tree, or another wire. They are technically called 
faults. Jt. S. Cultey, Pract. Teleg., p. 43. 
At a fault, faulty ; not as it ought to be ; deficient. 
Nares. At fault, (a) Open to censure ; blamable : as, he 
is not at fault in the matter, (b) In hunting, thrown off 
the scent or the trail ; unable to find the scent, as dogs. 
Hence (c) Unable to proceed, by reason of some embar- 
rassment or uncertainty ; puzzled ; out of bearing ; astray. 
The associationist theory is ... entirely at fault. 
Pop. Sci. Mo., XXXI. 668. 
Reverse fault, in mining, a dislocation of the rocks by a 
fault of such a character that a part of the bed or vein 
faulted is brought under another part of the same vein. 
As a general rule, when a vein is heaved by a fault, the lat- 
ter hades in the direction of the downthrow: this is a 
normal fault. When the hade is in the direction of the 
upthrow, the fault is said to be "reversed." To find 
fault, to discover, or perceive and make known, some de- 
fect, flaw, or matter of censure ; find cause of blame, com- 
plaint, or reproach : absolute or followed by with : as, you 
are always finding fault ; to find fault with fortune. 
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ? 
Rom. ix. 19. 
Or can you fault with Pilots find 
For changing Course, yet never blame the Wind ? 
Cowley, The Mistress, Called Inconstant. 
But who art thou, O man, that thus findest fault with 
thy Maker? Stillingfieet, Sermons, I. ii. 
= Syn. 2. Flaw. 3. Misdeed, misdemeanor, transgres- 
sion, wrong-doing, delinquency, weakness, slip, indiscre- 
tion. 
fault (fait), v. [< ME. fauteti, tr., lack ; from the 
noun.] I. trans. If. To lack. 
To that shall thay noght faut no-thyng truly, 
So God thaim aide and our Lady Mary! 
Bom. of Partenay (E. E. T. S.), 1. 2715. 
Thys lady hym said, " We faute. that we shold haue." 
Rom. of Partenay (E. E. T. S.), 1. 797. 
2. To charge with a fault ; find fault with ; re- 
proach. [Now rare, and chiefly colloq.] 
Whom should I fault' Bp. Hall, Satires, i. 2. 
That which is to be faulted in this particular is, when 
the grief is immoderate and unreasonable. 
Jer. Taylor, Holy Dying, 8. 
Having given my reasons for the act which you fault, 
... I must be permitted to turn my ... thoughts . . . 
to more immediate duties. 
New York Evening Post, Jan. 15, 1885. 
3. In geol., to cause a fault in. 
An undulation which has overturned the folds and has 
faulted them in some places. Science, I. 101. 
4. To scent or see ; find out; discover. [Prov. 
Eng.] 
II. intrans. To be in fault; be wrong; fail. 
[Obsolete or archaic.] 
If after Samuel's death the people had asked of God a 
king, they had not faulted. Latimer. 
His horse . . . had faulted rather with untimely art than 
want of force. Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, iii. 
It I h&ve faulted, I muSt make amends. 
Greene, George-a-Greene. 
If she flnd fault, 
I mend that fault ; and then she says, I faulted. 
That I did mend it. 
B. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, ii. 2. 
fault-block (falt'blok), n. In geol., a part of 
the earth's crust comprised between two par- 
allel or nearly parallel faults, and which has 
been lifted above or sunk below the general 
level of the adjacent region, as one of the re- 
sults of the crust-movement during which the 
faults originated. 
faulty 
faulted (fal'ted), n. [(fault + -/'!.] In geol, 
broken by one or more faults. 
faultert (fal'ter), n. An offender; one who 
commits a fault. 
Then she, Behold the faulter here in sight; 
This hand committed that supposed offence. 
Fairfax. 
fault-escarpment (falt'es-karp"ment), n. An 
escarpment or a cliff resulting from a fault, or 
a dislocation of the rocks adjacent. 
faultfinder (falt'fm'der), H. 1. One who picks 
flaws or points out faults ; one who complains 
or objects. 
Other pleasant faultfinders, who will correct the verb 
before they understand the noun. 
Sir P. Sidney, Defence of Poesy. 
2. An electrical or mechanical device for find- 
ing a fault in a current of electricity. 
The fault-finder consists of a pair of astatic needles 
hung on a curved axis, and suspended as delicately as 
possible. Preece and Sivewriffht, Telegraphy, p. 256. 
faultfinding (falt'fm // ding), n. The act of 
pointing out faults ; carping; picking flaws. 
faultfinding (falt'fm"dmg), a. Given to find- 
ing fault ; disposed to complain or object. 
And correspondence ev'ry way the same, 
That no fault-finding eye did ever blame. 
Sir J. Davies, Dancing. 
faultful (falt'ful), a. [< fault + -ful.~\ Full 
of faults, mistakes, or sins. 
So fares it with thisfaul/ful lord of Rome. 
Shak., Lucrece, 1. 715. 
Her great heart thro' all the faultful Past 
Went sorrowing. Tennyson, Princess, vii. 
faultily (fal'ti-li), adv. In a faulty manner; 
defectively; imperfectly; wrongly. 
Fenner an Englishman's book, which boastingly and 
stately enough bore the title of Theologia Sacra, which, 
by stealth and very faultily, came out here first, was not 
long after printed again by them [of Geneva]. 
Whitgift, To Beza, in Strype's Whitgift, II. 166. 
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null. 
Tennyson, Maud, ii. 
faultiness (fal'ti-nes), n. The state of being 
faulty or imperfect; defect; error; badness; 
viciousness. 
The present inhabitants of Geneva, I hope, will not take 
it in evil part that the faultiness of their people hereto- 
fore is by us so far forth laid open. 
Hooker, Eccles. Polity, Pref., ii. 
Cleo. Bear'st thou her face in mind? is 't long or round? 
Mess. Round even to faultiness. Shak., A. and C., iii. 3. 
The majority of us scarcely see more distinctly the 
faultinfiss of our own conduct than the faultiness of our 
own arguments or the dullness of our own jokes. 
George Eliot, Middleman*, I. 206. 
faulting (fal'ting), n. [Verbal n. of fault, v.~\ 
In geol., the act or process of producing faults 
or dislocation of strata. 
The persistent parallelism of the faults and of the pre- 
vailing northeasterly strike of the rocks indicates that the 
faulting and tilting were parts of one continuous process. 
Amer. Jour. Sei., 3d ser., XXIX. 15. 
faultless (falt'les), a. [< ME./awtfes, fautless; 
<. fault + -less.'] Without fault ; not defective 
or imperfect; free from blemish, flaw, or error; 
free from vice or offense; perfect in all re- 
spects : as, a faultless poem or picture. 
He 863 Mr so glorious, & gayly atyred, 
So/au(isof hir fetures, & of so fyne hewes, 
Wigt wallande loye warmed his hert. 
Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (E. E. T. S.), 1. 1761. 
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see 
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. 
Pope, Essay on Criticism, 1. 253. 
Many statesmen who have committed great faults ap- 
pear to us to be deserving of more esteem than the fault- 
less Temple. Macaulay, Sir William Temple. 
ear to us to be deserving of more esteem than the fa 
ess Temple. Macaulay, Sir William Tem 
faultlessly (falt'les-li), adv. In a faultless man- 
ner. 
faultlessness (falt'les-nes), w. Freedom from 
faults or defects. 
fault-rock (falt'rok), n. See friction-breccia. 
faultworthy (falt'wer"5Hi), a. Blameworthy; 
reprehensible. D. Tliomas, On Ps. xlvii. [Rare.] 
faulty (fal'ti), a. [< ME. fawtt/,fawty, adapted 
(as if < faute, fault, + -j/1) < OF.fautif, faulty, 
< faute, fault: see fault, n.~\ 1. Containing 
faults, errors, blemishes, or defects ; defective ; 
imperfect : as, a faulty composition ; a faulty 
plan or design. 
So that no thing is fawty, but anon it schalle ben amend- 
ed. Mandeville, Travels, p. 175. 
The 13th, the Rais, having in the night remedied what 
was faulty in his vessel, set sail about seven o'clock in the 
morning. Bruce, Source of the Nile, I. 242. 
The king's title was avowedly & faulty one ; and the many 
conspiracies that had beefi formed had shewn him the no- 
bility were not all of them disposed to bear his yoke. 
Bruce, Source of the Nile, II. 569. 
