| Library / English Dictionary |
INCONSISTENCY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of being inconsistent and lacking a harmonious uniformity among things or parts
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("inconsistency" is a kind of...):
nonuniformity (the quality of being diverse and interesting)
Antonym:
consistency (a harmonious uniformity or agreement among things or parts)
Derivation:
inconsistent (displaying a lack of consistency)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The relation between propositions that cannot both be true at the same time
Synonyms:
incompatibility; inconsistency; mutual exclusiveness; repugnance
Classified under:
Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas
Hypernyms ("inconsistency" is a kind of...):
contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)
Context examples:
The findings reveal major inconsistencies between what vehicles emit during testing and what they emit in the real world —a problem that's far more severe, said the researchers, than the incident in 2015, when federal regulators discovered Volkswagen had been fitting millions of new diesel cars with defeat devices.
(Diesel Pollutes More Than Lab Tests Detect, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Has there been any inconsistency on his side to create alarm? can he be deceitful?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to reprove.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
To Catherine's simple feelings, this odd sort of reserve seemed neither kindly meant, nor consistently supported; and its unkindness she would hardly have forborne pointing out, had its inconsistency been less their friend; but Anne and Maria soon set her heart at ease by the sagacity of their I know what; and the evening was spent in a sort of war of wit, a display of family ingenuity, on one side in the mystery of an affected secret, on the other of undefined discovery, all equally acute.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
And you can hardly think, said Mr. Spenlow, having experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements—of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with—but that mine are made?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
