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INEQUALITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lack of equality
Example:
the growing inequality between rich and poor
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("inequality" is a kind of...):
difference (the quality of being unlike or dissimilar)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inequality"):
nonequivalence (not interchangeable)
disparity (inequality or difference in some respect)
unevenness (the quality of being unbalanced)
Antonym:
equality (the quality of being the same in quantity or measure or value or status)
Context examples:
There was a pleasing inequality in the table, which produced many mishaps to cups and plates, acorns dropped in the milk, little black ants partook of the refreshments without being invited, and fuzzy caterpillars swung down from the tree to see what was going on.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon—the ordinary peasant's cart—with its long, snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
There were inequalities of surface.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
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)
I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
To make it worse, the light of the sky was obscured and snow began to fall—a raw, moist, melting, clinging snow, slippery under foot, that hid from him the landscape he traversed, and that covered over the inequalities of the ground so that the way of his feet was more difficult and painful.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being crushed and torn by the white teeth of the she-wolf.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware, probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you are so sensible of.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
