disability

noun — 7 senses

disability

noun

/dɪsəˈbɪlɪti/

Etymology Circa 1570 disable + -ity.

7 senses
  1. 1A condition characterised by a significant limitation in…
  2. 2The state of having such a condition; the state of being…
  3. 3A limitation in function (the things that a person can…
  4. 4An inability.
  5. 5A lack of legal qualification to do something; legal…
  6. 6A duty to refrain from altering a person's legal…
  7. 7Regular payments received by a disabled person, usually…
1

A condition characterised by a significant limitation in a person's physical or intellectual powers or ability.

Medical model of disability

  • people with disabilities
  • Chatham refused to see him, pleading his disability. The King himself intervened by a letter[…]Chatham yielded to such persuasion; though suffering from a universal tremor.1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [et al.], →OCLC:
2

The state of having such a condition; the state of being disabled.

  • While physical and sensory disability is usually identified by asking a subject what he or she can or cannot do (with or without assistance), cognitive disability is assessed with a test such as a mental status questionnaire (MSQ).1992, Joan C. Cornoni-Huntley et al., “Epidemiology of disability in the oldest old”, in The Oldest Old, page 278:
3

A limitation in function (the things that a person can do or achieve) that is driven by any combination of their impairments (the medical facts about them) and the imperfect state of society's inaccessibility that sometimes fails to accommodate their needs.

Social model of disability

4

Obsolete An inability.

  • Grossest faults, or disabilities to perform what was covenanted.1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC:
5

Law A lack of legal qualification to do something; legal incapacity or incompetency.

6

Law A duty to refrain from altering a person's legal relations; correlative of an immunity.

7

Informal Regular payments received by a disabled person, usually from the state.

  • I had to go on disability after the accident.
  • Did you get your disability this month?
Derived terms
alpha-thalassemia-intellectual disability syndrome, antidisability, blepharophimosis-ptosis-intellectual disability syndrome, cognitive disability, developmental disability, disability adjusted life year, disability-adjusted life year, disability dongle, disability sport, I have a disability, intellectual disability, learning disability, multidisabilities, multidisability, neurodisability, pan-disability, predisability, print disability
Related terms
disable, disabled, disablism

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.