Disparities

How to spell disparities

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce disparities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disparities mean?

1. nounNoticeable inequalities or differences, especially in level, amount, or treatment between groups or things.

Disparities in a sentence

• The report exposed wide disparities in pay between the two departments.

• Researchers tracked health disparities across rich and poor regions.

Where does disparities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin par, meaning 'equal', the same root that gives us 'par' in golf and 'parity' in finance. Adding the negative prefix dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'not', produced Late Latin disparitas, the state of being unequal or unlike. The term passed into English through French in the late 1500s, when 'disparity' first described a mismatch or inequality between two things. Over the centuries the sense narrowed toward measurable gaps, especially in wealth, health, opportunity, and treatment, which is how the plural is most often used today. The spelling trap sits in the middle: it is par (equal), not 'per', so writers who pronounce the unstressed second syllable as a vague schwa often reach for the wrong vowel.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, not)
• par (equal)
• -ity (state or quality)
• -es (plural)