Faulting

fault  (fôlt) n. 1. a. A character weakness, especially a minor one. b. Something that impairs or detracts from physical perfection; a defect. See Synonyms at blemish. c. A mistake; an error. d. A minor offense or misdeed. 2. Responsibility for a mistake or an offense; culpability. See Synonyms at blame. 3. Geology A fracture in the continuity of a rock formation caused by a shifting or dislodging of the earth's crust, in which adjacent surfaces are displaced relative to one another and parallel to the plane of fracture. Also called shift. 4. Electronics A defect in a circuit or wiring caused by imperfect connections, poor insulation, grounding, or shorting. 5. Sports A bad service, as in tennis. 6. Obsolete A lack or deficiency. v. fault·ed, fault·ing, faults v.tr. 1. To find error or defect in; criticize or blame. 2. Geology To produce a fault in; fracture. v.intr. 1. To commit a mistake or an error. 2. Geology To shift so as to produce a fault. Idioms: at fault 1. Deserving of blame; guilty: admitted to being at fault. 2. Confused and puzzled. find fault To seek, find, and complain about faults; criticize: found fault with his speech. to a fault To an excessive degree: generous to a fault. [Middle English faulte, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *fallita, from variant of Latin falsa, feminine past participle of fallere, to deceive, fail.]

fault top: normal fault center: reverse fault bottom: strike-slip fault

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

faulting - (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other; "they built it right over a geological fault"; "he studied the faulting of the earth's crust" geological fault, fracture, break, fault, shift geology - a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks fault line - (geology) line determined by the intersection of a geological fault and the earth's surface crack, scissure, cleft, crevice, fissure - a long narrow opening inclined fault - a geological fault in which one side is above the other strike-slip fault - a geological fault in which one of the adjacent surfaces appears to have moved horizontally