inequality
Pluralinequalities
- 1An unfair condition in which people or groups do not have equal status, rights, or resources.
Economic inequality has widened sharply over the past few decades.
Activists campaigned against racial inequality in housing and employment.
Similardisparity, inequity, imbalance, unfairness, injustice
Oppositeequality, equity, parity, fairness
Note
A word for a social condition that came into English through Old French from Latin inaequalis, "not equal". As a mass noun it names the overall state: regional inequality, or "Edwardian levels of inequality," in George Monbiot's 2013 phrase. As a countable noun it picks out particular unfairnesses, as in the traditional inequalities of marriage. The singular describes a condition, and the plural lists specific grievances.
- 2A mathematical statement that one quantity is less than, greater than, or not equal to another.
The teacher asked students to graph the inequality on a number line.
Each inequality in the system narrows the range of possible solutions.
Note
Mathematics distinguishes strict inequalities, written < or >, from non-strict ones, written ≤ or ≥, which allow the two sides to be equal; ≠ says only that they differ. Inequalities can be chained: from x < y and y < z, the inequality x < z follows. The word also names whole families of results, such as the Bell inequalities that Brandon Fogel examined in 2015.
- 3The quality of being uneven or irregular in surface, size, or arrangement.
The inequality of the terrain forced the hikers to slow down.
A slight inequality in the table legs made it wobble against the floor.
Similarunevenness, irregularity, roughness
Oppositeevenness, smoothness, regularity, uniformity
Note
The physical sense is concrete enough to count: individual bumps and hollows in a surface. In The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms (1881), Charles Darwin credits worms with leveling "all the inequalities" of a turf-covered expanse. Unevenness and irregularity are its close synonyms, and the surrounding context usually keeps it apart from the social meaning.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of inequality apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
This word came through Middle English inequalite and Old French inequalité from Medieval Latin inaequālitās, ultimately from Latin inaequālis ("unequal"), which combines in- ("not") with aequālis ("equal").