| 释义 |
disability|dɪsəˈbɪlɪtɪ|
[f. disable a., after able, ability.]
1. Want of ability (to discharge any office or function); inability, incapacity, impotence.
b. An instance of this. (Now rare in gen. sense.)
1580Lupton Sivqila 139 His disabilitie to performe his promise. 1772–84Cook Voy. (1790) VI. 2038 Their whole frame trembling and paralytic, attended with a disability of raising their heads. 1856Lever Martins of Cro'M. 205 A disability to contest the prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred. 1870Anderson Missions Amer. Bd. IV. xxxix. 364 Crippled by the disability of its oldest native helper.
b.1645Milton Colast. Wks. (1847) 223/1 Disabilities to perform what was covenanted. 1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. ii. xxi. (R.), Bringing on the inconveniences, disabilities, pains and mental disorders spoken of. 1824Westm. Rev. II. 194 The author labours under many disabilities for making a good book.
c. Pecuniary inability or want of means.
1624Jas. I Sp. in A. Wilson Life (1653) 267 My disabilities are increased by the Charge of my Sonnes journey into Spain. 1648Boyle Seraph. Love (1660) 23. 1701 J. Law Counc. Trade (1751) 72 It [Taxing] leaves a dissability equal, and in proportion to its weight. 1857Ruskin Pol. Econ. Art 18 What would you say to the lord of an estate who complained to you of his poverty and disabilities?
2. Incapacity in the eye of the law, or created by the law; a restriction framed to prevent any person or class of persons from sharing in duties or privileges which would otherwise be open to them; legal disqualification.
1641Termes de la Ley 118 b, Disabilitie is when a man..by any..cause is disabled or made incapable to doe, to inherit, or to take..advantage of a thing which otherwise he might have had or done. 1765–9Blackstone Comm. (1793) 554 The next legal disability is want of age. a1832Mackintosh France in 1815 Wks. 1846 III. 193 Of all the lessons of history, there is none more evident in itself..than that persecutions, disabilities, exclusions—all systematic wrong to great bodies of citizens,—are sooner or later punished. 1832H. Martineau Ireland 117 The law has at length emancipated us from our civil disabilities. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 11 His eagerness to remove the disabilities under which the professors of his religion lay. |