Other forms: malfunctioning, malfunctions, malfunctioned
To malfunction is to go wrong while still running — working, but not the way it should. The lift that stops between floors, the printer that grabs two sheets at once, the ticket barrier that swallows your card.
It is a verb and a noun: the sensor malfunctioned, and the crash was traced to a malfunction. The word belongs to engineers, pilots and accident reports, which is why it sounds serious; nobody says the kettle malfunctioned when they mean it broke. Reach for it when the fault is in how a thing operates rather than in it being smashed. The one everyday phrase carrying it is wardrobe malfunction, the polite name for clothing that comes undone in public.
1verbmalfunctionTo stop working properly.
“The alarm malfunctions every time it rains.”
2nounfailureA failure of a machine or system to work as it should.
“A software malfunction grounded the flights for six hours.”
malfunction is a technical failure.
Malfunction was built rather than inherited: the prefix mal- in front of function, the same mal- that fronts malnutrition and malpractice. It marks a thing done badly rather than not done at all, which is exactly what a malfunctioning machine does.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰewg-
Middle French
function
English
function
English, today
malfunction
Built from
From mal- + function. function Borrowed from Middle French function. From Middle French function, from Old French fonction, from Latin functiō (“performance, execution”), from functus, perfect participle of fungor (“to perform, execute, discharge”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰewg- (“to enjoy”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA