"inability" meaning in English

See inability in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌɪnəˈbɪlɪti/ Audio: en-us-inability.ogg [US] Forms: inability, inabilities [plural]
Etymology: in- + ability Etymology templates: {{ety-prefix|in|ability}} in- + ability Head templates: {{noun|2=inabilities}} [POS TABLE]
  1. An inability is something that you can not do.
    Sense id: simple-inability-en-noun-AC24Q-b1
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Categories (other): Terms prefixed with in-
{
  "categories": [
    {
      "kind": "other",
      "name": "Terms prefixed with in-",
      "parents": [],
      "source": "w"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "in",
        "2": "ability"
      },
      "expansion": "in- + ability",
      "name": "ety-prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "in- + ability",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "inability",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "inabilities",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "2": "inabilities"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "in‧abil‧i‧ty",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ability"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The inability to play baseball was a problem during gym."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An inability is something that you can not do."
      ],
      "id": "simple-inability-en-noun-AC24Q-b1",
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌɪnəˈbɪlɪti/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-inability.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "inability"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "Terms prefixed with in-"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "in",
        "2": "ability"
      },
      "expansion": "in- + ability",
      "name": "ety-prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "in- + ability",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "inability",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "inabilities",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "2": "inabilities"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "in‧abil‧i‧ty",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ability"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "Countable nouns"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The inability to play baseball was a problem during gym."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An inability is something that you can not do."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌɪnəˈbɪlɪti/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-inability.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "inability"
}

Download raw JSONL data for inability meaning in English (0.8kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-15 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (074e7de and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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