Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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. – Pope.
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. – Matth. v.
4. Manifesting perfection. My strength is made perfect in weakness. – 2 Cor. xii. 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 anther and stigma. – Martyn. Perfect tense, in grammar, the preterit tense; a tense which expresses an act completed.