unability
nounEtymology From un- + ability.
1
Usually Lack of ability; inability.
- difficulty doth not make me despaire, much lesse my unability: for it is but mine owne.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
- there being so many whose businesse and profession meerly it is, to be the champions of Truth; which if they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth, or unability?1644, John Milton, Areopagitica:
4 more examples
- Until today we have not made much progress over Democrit who postulated that it is only our unability to register and explain a great number of fast events in a non-linear way, i.e. not according to the principle of cause and effect.1999, Albert J. Widmann, The Stone Age of Faith:
- For the most common unabilities of disabled and older to perform different tasks in the kitchen, some adapted elements, including a robot-arm, have been designed.1999, Christian Bühler, Harry Knops, Assistive Technology on the Threshold of the New Millennium:
- Failures were related to the unability to selectively place the guiding catheter at the coronary ostium in 2 cases and to the unability to cross the lesion in 8 cases.2012, Johan H. C. Reiber, P.W. Serruys, Advances in Quantitative Coronary Arteriography:
- Equally ambivalent is the attempt to operationalize country risk by differentiating a sovereign debtor's "unability" and "unwillingness" to pay.2012, Walter Berger, Financial Innovations in International Debt Management: