PER'FECT, a. [L. perfectus, perficio, to complete; per and facio, to do or make through, to carry to the end.] 1. Finished; complete; consummate; not defective; having all that is requisite to its nature and kind; as a perfect statue; a perfect likeness; a perfect work; a perfect system. As full, as perfect in a hair as heart.2. Fully informed; completely skilled; as men perfect in the use of arms; perfect in discipline.3. Complete in moral excellencies. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Matt.5.4. Manifesting perfection. My strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor.12.Perfect chord,in music, a concord or union of sounds which is perfectly coalescent and agreeable to the ear, as the fifth and the octave; a perfect consonance. A perfect flower, in botany, has both stamen and pistil, or at least another and stigma. Perfect tense, in grammar, the preterit tense; a tense which expresses an act completed. PER'FECT, v.t. [L. perfectus, perficio.] To finish or complete so as to leave nothing wanting; to give to any thing all that is requisite to its nature and kind; as, to perfect a picture or statue. 2 Chron.8. -Inquire into the nature and properties of things, and thereby perfect our ideas of distinct species. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4.1. To instruct fully; to make fully skillful; as, to perfect one's self in the rules of music or architecture; to perfect soldiers in discipline.
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