a. Forms: 4–5, 9 dial. fauty, 4–5 fawty(e, 5 fawte, 6 fawtie, fautye, 6–7 faultie, (6 faulte), 7 faultye, 7– faulty. [f. as prec. + -Y1, perh. after F. fautif.]
1. Containing faults, blemishes or defects; defective, imperfect, unsound.
a. of material things.
1435. Misyn, The Mending of Life, 108. So þow settis þi-self on a fawte grounde.
c. 1450. Life of St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 4082. Þe walles of cuthbert oratory he fande þaim mekil fawty.
1530. Palsgr., 312/1. Fautye as fruite is that is nat sownde.
1577. Nottingham Rec., IV. 171. There is many stretes is owte of order for mendyng vere faulte.
1643. Prynne, Open. Gt. Seal, 21. Some of the seales for ill cloathes, to have faultie engraven in them.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1698), I. 443. Here they made a new Boltsprit, which we did set here also, our old one being very faulty.
1697. Dryden, Virgil, Life (1721), I. 29. He [the colt] came of a faulty Mare, and would prove a Jade.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., II. i. (1762), 115. The care which the owner took from time to time to pluck up the faulty ears as fast as they appeared, contributed greatly thereto.
1846. Greener, Sc. Gunnery, 187. If a barrel be faulty, or locks inferior, you can have a new one in the time a London house would take in ordering it.
1862. Huxley, Lect. Wrkg. Men, 46–7. Faulty as these layers of stone in the earth’s crust are, defective as they necessarily are as a record, the account of contemporaneous vital phenomena presented by them is, by the necessity of the case, infinitely more defective and fragmentary.
1887. Darlington, Folk-speech S. Cheshire, Gloss., s.v. Fauty.… ‘These tatoes bin turnin’ up very fauty.’
1888. Berksh. Gloss., Vauty, anything … with part decayed is so described.
b. of immaterial things.
1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 364. God takiþ þis ordenance in his chirche as … in nowise fawtye.
1535. Joye, Apol. Tindale, 27. Whether my correccion … be a diligent correccion, and Tindales translacion fautye or no.
1551. T. Wilson, Logike (1580), 34 b. If either of the partes maie be turned into the aduersaries necke againe, or both of them, it is a faulty Argument.
1649. W. Dugdale, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 174. If Mr. Leicester do knowe it [my comparing of Domesday] to be faultye … that I will not deny.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 68. The origin of the gout lies in a faulty digestion.
1789. Burns, Lett. to Miss Williams. Where the expression seems to be perplexed or faulty.
1830. Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 185. Those … may consistently blame the faulty principle, and rejoice in its destruction.
2. Of persons, their qualities, etc.: Having imperfections or failings; apt to do wrong or come short of duty.
1574. trans. Marlorat’s Apocalips, 40. For the cause why our affections are faultie, is for that they runne headlong, and haue no stay of themselues: but in Christ, for as muche as they were quiet and settled to the obeying of God, they were vtterly faultlesse.
1621. Bp. Hall, Heaven upon Earth, § 5. Our best endeuour is … faulty.
1712. Budgell, Spect., No. 506, 10 Oct., ¶ 6. The ladies are generally most faulty in this particular; who, at their first giving into love, find the way so smooth and pleasant, that they fancy it is scarce possible to be tired in it.
1729. Butler, Serm., Pref. Wks. 1874, II. 21. To forgive injuries … so peculiarly becomes an imperfect, faulty creature.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), I. iii. 14. His reputed faulty morals.
1878. Browning, La Saisiaz, 509.
| There ’s evading and persuading and much making law amends | |
| Somehow there ’s the nice distinction ’twixt fast foes and faulty friends. |
3. † a. That has committed a fault, error, or offence; guilty of wrong-doing (obs.). b. That is in fault or to blame (for some undesirable results).
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 741.
| & quat if faurty be fre & fauty þyse oþer | |
| Schalt þow schortly al schende & schape non oþer. |
1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 364. Ellis men mosten say þat God is and was fawty in ordenance of boþe his lawis.
1389. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 72. Qwat man or woman be fawty, he schal paye … di. li. wax.
c. 1440. York Myst., xl. 130 A! fooles þat are fauty and failes of youre feithe.
1481. Caxton, Reynard (Arb.), 5. Reynard the fox, for he knewe hym self fawty and gylty in many thynges.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 54.
| Howebeit I knowe my wordes shall suche greue, | |
| As them selfe knoweth fawtie and culpable. |
1556. Aurelio & Isab. (1608), B vj. What soever person that were founde faultie of like errour.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Maid’s Trag., I. i.
| Thou art faulty; | |
| I sent for thee to exercise thine armes | |
| With me at Patria: thou cam’st not Diphilus: ’Twas ill. |
1614. Henley-in-Arden Rolls. Wee Doe present william Kerbee shoomaker ffaulty.
1681. Eng. Elect. Sheriffs, 19. How often hath the City been more faulty to divers of our former Kings.
1777. Howard, Prisons Eng. (1780), 196. Workshops for faulty apprentices.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., 102. As it now stands, ‘one fiddle’ among many, the faulty individual will I hope escape detection.
absol. 1533. More, Debell. Salem, Wks. 985/1. Yf he would compare the fauty wyth the fauty.
1614. Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 759. It is an old policy of the faulty, to complaine first.
4. Of the nature of a fault; censurable, wrong.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Col. ii. 18. A faultie humbleness it is, through Angels to loke for that whiche shuld of Christ himselfe be asked.
1699. Burnet, 39 Art., xxii. 247. In condemning all Idolatry, no reserve is made in Scripture for this, as being faulty, only because it was applied wrong; or that it might be set right when directed better.
1851. Hussey, The Rise of the Papal Power, ii. 66. Thus Rome grew now by means of whatever was faulty in the Church, as before she had grown by her own merits.
1869. Goulburn, Purs. Holiness, Pref., 11. A faulty habit of mind.
B. quasi-adv. = FAULTILY adv.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), II. xix. 208. What an humbling thing is the consciousness of having lived faulty.
