Search Result for "disability": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (1)

1. the condition of being unable to perform as a consequence of physical or mental unfitness;
- Example: "reading disability"
- Example: "hearing impairment"
[syn: disability, disablement, handicap, impairment]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

disability \dis`a*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. Disabilities. 1. State of being disabled; deprivation or want of ability; absence of competent physical, intellectual, or moral power, means, fitness, and the like. [1913 Webster] Grossest faults, or disabilities to perform what was covenanted. --Milton. [1913 Webster] Chatham refused to see him, pleading his disability. --Bancroft. [1913 Webster] 2. Want of legal qualification to do a thing; legal incapacity or incompetency. [1913 Webster] The disabilities of idiocy, infancy, and coverture. --Abbott. Syn: Weakness; inability; incompetence; impotence; incapacity; incompetency; disqualification. Usage: -- Disability, Inability. Inability is an inherent want of power to perform the thing in question; disability arises from some deprivation or loss of the needed competency. One who becomes deranged is under a disability of holding his estate; and one who is made a judge, of deciding in his own case. A man may decline an office on account of his inability to discharge its duties; he may refuse to accept a trust or employment on account of some disability prevents him from entering into such engagements. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

disability n 1: the condition of being unable to perform as a consequence of physical or mental unfitness; "reading disability"; "hearing impairment" [syn: disability, disablement, handicap, impairment]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

97 Moby Thesaurus words for "disability": abnormality, acute disease, affection, affliction, ailment, allergic disease, allergy, atrophy, bacterial disease, birth defect, blight, cardiovascular disease, chronic disease, circulatory disease, complaint, complication, condition, congenital defect, defect, deficiency disease, deformity, degenerative disease, detriment, disablement, disadvantage, disease, disorder, disqualification, distemper, drawback, endemic, endemic disease, endocrine disease, epidemic disease, functional disease, fungus disease, gastrointestinal disease, genetic disease, handicap, helplessness, hereditary disease, iatrogenic disease, illness, imbecility, impairment, impotence, inability, inadequacy, incapability, incapacitation, incapacity, incompetence, incompetency, indisposition, inefficiency, ineptitude, infancy, infectious disease, inferiority, infirmity, insufficiency, legal incapacity, malady, malaise, minority, morbidity, morbus, muscular disease, neurological disease, nutritional disease, occupational disease, organic disease, pandemic disease, pathological condition, pathology, plant disease, powerlessness, protozoan disease, psychosomatic disease, respiratory disease, rockiness, secondary disease, seediness, sickishness, sickness, signs, symptomatology, symptomology, symptoms, syndrome, the pip, unfitness, urogenital disease, virus disease, wardship, wasting disease, worm disease
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

DISABILITY. The want of legal capacity to do a thing. 2. Persons may be under disability, 1. To make contracts. 2. To bring actions. 3.-1. Those who want understanding; as idiots, lunatics, drunkards, and infants or freedom to exercise their will, as married women, and persons in duress; or who, in consequence of their situation, are forbidden by the policy of the law to enter into contracts, as trustees, executors, administrators, or guardians, are under disabilities to make contracts. See Parties; Contracts. 4.-2. The disabilities to sue are, 1. Alienage, when the alien is an enemy. Bac. Ab. Abatement, B 3; Id. Alien, E: Com. Dig. Abatement , K; Co. Litt. 129. 2. Coverture; unless as co-plaintiff with her husband, a married woman cannot sue. 3. Infancy; unless he appears by guardian or prochein ami. Co. Litt. 135, b; 2 Saund. 117, f, n. 1 Bac. Ab. Infancy, K 2 Conn. 357; 7 John. 373; Gould, Pl. c. 5, Sec. 54. 4. That no such person as that named has any existence, is not, or never was, in rerum natura. Com. Dig. Abatement, E 16, 17; 1 Chit. Pl. 435; Gould on Pl. c. 5, Sec. 58; Lawes' Pl. 104; 19 John. 308. By the law of England there are other disabilities; these are, 1. Outlawry. 2. Attainder. 3. Praemunire. 4. Popish recusancy. 5. Monachism. 5. In the acts of limitation it is provided that persons lying under certain disabilities, such as being non compos, an infant, in prison, or under coverture, shall have the right to bring actions after the disability shall have been removed. 6. In the construction of this saving in the acts, it has been decided that two disabilities shall not be joined when they occur in different persons; as, if a right of entry accrue to a feme covert, and during the coverture she die, and the right descends to her infant son. But the rule is otherwise when there are several disabilities in the same person; as, if the right accrues to an infant, and before he has attained his full age, he becomes non compos mentis; in this case he may establish his right after the removal of the last disability. 2 Prest. Abs. of Tit. 341 Shep. To. 31; 3 Tho. Co. Litt. pl. 18, note L; 2 H. Bl. 584; 5 Whart. R. 377. Vide Incapacity.