INCAPACITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does incapacity mean? 

• INCAPACITY (noun)
  The noun INCAPACITY has 2 senses:

1. lack of intellectual power

2. lack of physical or natural qualifications

  Familiarity information: INCAPACITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCAPACITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lack of intellectual power

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("incapacity" is a kind of...):

inability (lack of ability (especially mental ability) to do something)

Antonym:

capacity (the power to learn or retain knowledge; in law, the ability to understand the facts and significance of your behavior)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lack of physical or natural qualifications

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("incapacity" is a kind of...):

incapability; incapableness (the quality of not being capable -- physically or intellectually or legally)

Antonym:

capacity (capability to perform or produce)

 Context examples 

She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to fail.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her plan for the morning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to remain in the same place and the same employment till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incommoded by the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)