Meaning
DISABILITY, n. [from disable.]
1. Want of competent natural or bodily power, strength or ability; weakness; impotence; as disability arising from infirmity or broken limbs.
2. Want of competent intellectual power or strength of mind; incapacity; as the disability of a deranged person to reason or to make contracts.
3. Want of competent means or instruments. [In this sense, inability is generally used.]
4. Want of legal qualifications; incapacity; as a disability to inherit an estate, when the ancestor has been attainted. [In this sense, it has a plural.]
Disability differs from inability, in denoting deprivation of ability; whereas inability denotes destitution of ability, either by deprivation or otherwise.
