Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

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.

Grossest faults, or disabilities to perform what was covenanted. Milton.

Chatham refused to see him, pleading his disability. Bancroft.

2. Want of legal qualification to do a thing; legal incapacity or incompetency.

The disabilities of idiocy, infancy, and coverture. Abbott.

Syn. — Weakness; inability; incompetence; impotence; incapacity; incompetency; disqualification. — 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.