defacement n : the act of damaging the appearance or surface of something; "the defacement of an Italian mosaic during the Turkish invasion"; "he objected to the dam's massive disfigurement of the landscape" [syn: disfigurement, disfiguration]

English

Noun

1. An act of defacing; an instance of visibly marring or disfiguring something.

   Some consider the defacement of the Sphinx to be the most egregious crime of Napolean's campaigns.

2. An act of voiding or devaluing; nullification of the face value.

   The soldiers found a variety of creative uses for their payment scrip after its defacement to scrap paper; some used it as toilet paper.

3. (Vexillology) A symbol added to a flag to change it [the flag] or make it different from another.

   Note: The word "defacement" in Vexillology has none of the bad connotations its other meanings have.

Synonyms

• (act of defacing): disfiguration, graffiti, obliteration, vandalism
• (nullification of face value): cancellation, devaluation

Defacement may refer to:

• Defacement (flag) - a term used in heraldry and vexillology.
• Defacement (vandalism) - a type of vandalism.