How to Use imperfect in a Sentence

imperfect

1 of 2 adjective

• He had an imperfect understanding of the task.
• In “He was singing when I came in,” “was singing” is in the imperfect tense.
• It's an imperfect solution to a difficult problem.
• Roll out too thin of a skin or pinch an imperfect crimp and the broth will leak through.
  — Clarissa Wei, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023
• All of these are rhyming couplets, but in the first two the rhyme is imperfect, slant.
  — Kamran Javadizadeh, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2023
• That sequence of events may be an imperfect guide to the Treasury bond market of the 2020s.
  — Talmon Joseph Smith, New York Times, 18 Dec. 2023
• Brush on random, imperfect strokes of crafts glue with a foam brush.
  — Emily Vanschmus, Better Homes & Gardens, 13 Nov. 2023
• There was Reeves, of course, a perfect killer for a grimly imperfect world.
  — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 22 Mar. 2023
• Give them permission to be imperfect and learn from their false starts.
  — Emily Rose, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
• And the timing, as us agents of chaos in the writers room construct, is just perfectly imperfect.
  — Selome Hailu, Variety, 15 Dec. 2022
• Such implants designed on Earth are imperfect due to the tug of gravity, Ondler says.
  — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Mar. 2023
• There’s a lot that’s imperfect about our justice system, God knows.
  — Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 20 Mar. 2023
• But will doctors cede control to imperfect machines to get a few minutes of their lives back?
  — Alex Knapp, Forbes, 3 May 2023
• Now, though, Dorsey appears to believe Musk was an imperfect choice.
  — Brian Fung, CNN, 1 May 2023
• That creates that little bit of caramelization on the top with little imperfect points.
  — Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Nov. 2023
• These imperfect future parents want a baby more than anything in the world.
  — Peter Debruge, Variety, 9 Mar. 2024
• Models barely wore makeup, if any at all, and hair was left imperfect and tousled; some were given waves down to the smalls of their backs.
  — Kevin Leblanc, ELLE, 14 Feb. 2023
• Sure, the Rangers — on the heels of a six-game winning streak with plenty of momentum after a four-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays — remain imperfect.
  — Shawn McFarland, Dallas News, 16 Sep. 2023
• Keep it casual with unmeasured berry twigs (some long, some short) and a loose, imperfect red bow.
  — Emily Vanschmus, Better Homes & Gardens, 17 Oct. 2023
• But Biden has always favored talks, however imperfect, in a tradition that dates back to the origins of the Cold War.
  — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 19 Nov. 2023
• Would the people vote up or down on an aspirational but imperfect deal?
  — Amanda Ferguson, Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2023
• See, the actress who once played the rather imperfect Mary Camden on 7th Heaven isn’t trying to tell parents that the big secret is putting on makeup.
  — Beth Ann Mayer, Parents, 15 Feb. 2024
• Tarasenko was on the ice when a 4-on-4 sequence ended, and got stuck playing on an imperfect forward line next to fellow wingers Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe.
  — David Wilson, Miami Herald, 7 Mar. 2024
• But the picture painted in the lawsuit is that of a highly imperfect manager, both of her employees and her brand.
  — Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, 23 Aug. 2023
• The form of race-conscious admissions used at Harvard and UNC was one imperfect tool to advance racial justice.
  — Dominique J. Baker, Scientific American, 7 July 2023
• Trending That’s also a Hunger Games staple, of course, and this imperfect yet surprising prequel knows that even those who haven’t read the book(s) will want that itch scratched.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 16 Nov. 2023
• Van Essen also cautioned that MRIs are imperfect tools and may not reliably capture the nature of the brain's wiring.
  — Aria Bendix, NBC News, 31 May 2023
• Like all starting points, these efforts may be imperfect.
  — John Q. Young, STAT, 13 Dec. 2022
• Certainly, imperfect against Texas but still looks like the best option after cycling the next two contenders through the real-world test.
  — Michael Casagrande | [e-mail], al, 16 Sep. 2023
• There were no loose threads, imperfect stitches, or snags, and the color was even and well-saturated throughout.
  — Kathleen Felton, Better Homes & Gardens, 29 Jan. 2024

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imperfect

2 of 2 noun

• Art books call it wabi-sabi: finding beauty in the imperfect.
  — Kevin Fisher-Paulson, SFChronicle.com, 22 Dec. 2020
• At the same time, our fallibility is steeped in the stain of sin and imperfect appetites.
  — Tod Worner, National Review, 25 Oct. 2020
• The combination of an imperfect shot out of that divot, and a wall of wind caused him to one-hop his next shot into the Swilcan Burn that cuts across the course.
  — Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2022
• The treaty, though acknowledged as imperfect by the queen, formed a binding connection between the Maori people and the crown.
  — Michael E. Miller, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2022
• One wonders what Franklin, transported to our present imperfect union, would make of us.
  — Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2022
• And the solution was always going to be an imperfect one.
  — Dan Woike, Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2021
• But Burhan’s imperfect English delayed this project for a number of years.
  — Morgan Meis, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2021
• At least when the lockdowns were done by zip code, people understood that, even if imperfect.
  — CBS News, 12 Oct. 2020
• While Kaavia's bun was adorned with a bright red bow, Union's hair gave all the feels of a perfectly imperfect poshly held together messy bun.
  — Chelsea Avila, Allure, 19 Sep. 2022
• Empathy and time are the only (imperfect) answers to grief.
  — Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022
• Covax is one hope for dealing with some of these problems, but an imperfect one.
  — Washington Post, 3 Sep. 2020
• Dream big but don’t lose the ability to enjoy imperfect pleasures.
  — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 7 Nov. 2020
• Many office workers have seen over the past several months that, although imperfect, work-from-home can work just fine.
  — Whizy Kim, refinery29.com, 16 Sep. 2020
• Breyer, too, said that Smith, while imperfect, attempted to answer a question that did not seem to have a good answer.
  — Nicholas Rowan, Washington Examiner, 4 Nov. 2020
• So while imperfect, WalletHub’s rankings are still a good starting point for those whose jobs allow home to be anywhere.
  — New York Times, 27 Apr. 2021
• The play ends with the audience deciding whether to keep the imperfect but alterable Constitution or to rip it up and start over.
  — Mark Kennedy, Star Tribune, 14 Oct. 2020
• Many have triggered concerns from people who use, study, or work at Twitter that the world may lose an imperfect but uniquely open online space.
  — WIRED, 28 Oct. 2022
• The Underground Railroad is an imperfect take on a painful, sprawling subject.
  — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 10 May 2021
• Your best bet might be to make an imperfect splash, as forward-pushing Mars meets unrestrained Uranus in your friendship sector.
  — Chicago Tribune, 31 July 2022
• The debate is an important, if imperfect, chance to make another pitch.
  — New York Times, 16 June 2021
• But then, any novel by Lawrence, even a great one, is an imperfect, uneven, and self-sabotaging creature.
  — Frances Wilson, The New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2020
• Halting the Tigers' campaign is a byproduct of an imperfect system and an unsolvable scenario.
  — Evan Petzold, Detroit Free Press, 4 Aug. 2020
• In each of those cases, law enforcement agencies have been quick to paint the victims as imperfect, not to be exonerated even in death.
  — Jacqui Shine, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 June 2020
• In other words, scraps all gussied up in proud new packaging is well and good, but conserving imperfect edibles is a practice as old as time.
  — Maggie Lange, Bon Appétit, 27 Oct. 2021
• Two weeks after the park opened, the Bay Area began to shelter in place, the playground closed and the number of tents on Tenderloin sidewalks — an imperfect but telling metric of the neighborhood’s health — more than doubled.
  — Ryan Kost, SFChronicle.com, 12 July 2020
• Springsteen will be an exciting, if imperfect, way to gauge the industry’s return.
  — Lee Seymour, Forbes, 7 June 2021
• Williams again struggled away from home with two interceptions and several imperfect throws that stalled drives.
  — Erick Smith, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2021
• Like Harper, Stewart sees the vote this November as a crucial, if imperfect, vehicle for change.
  — Hanif Abdurraqib, The New Republic, 19 Oct. 2020
• In the people who delivered groceries, who sewed masks, who have long cursed America’s imperfect systems and long fought to change them, who still donate $10 to a sick teacher’s GoFundMe.
  — Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2020
• That leaves the 2021 study as the organization’s only indication of its current makeup — and an imperfect one, at that.
  — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep. 2022

Last Updated: 3 May 2024