birth defect

Questions about birth defect

What does birth defect mean?

birth defect means "a defect that is present at birth".

What is another word for birth defect?

Close synonyms include congenital anomaly, congenital defect, congenital disorder, congenital abnormality. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is birth defect a common word?

birth defect is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.