Inequality

How to spell inequality

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce inequality

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inequality mean?

1. nounAn unfair difference in wealth, status, opportunity, or treatment between groups of people.
2. nounA mathematical statement that two values are not equal, often shown with the greater-than or less-than symbols.

Inequality in a sentence

• The report highlighted the growing inequality between rich and poor households.

• The student solved the inequality to find the range of valid values for x.

• Campaigners argue that wage inequality holds the whole economy back.

• The teacher explained how to graph the inequality on a number line.

Where does inequality come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin aequalis, meaning 'equal' or 'level', which was built on aequus, an adjective that literally meant 'even', 'flat', or 'fair'. Adding the negative prefix in-, meaning 'not', produced inaequalis, 'unequal', and from that came the noun inaequalitas, describing the state of being uneven. English took the word in during the late 1300s by way of Old French inequalite, at first describing physical unevenness of surfaces before broadening to differences in rank, wealth, and condition. The same aequus root quietly underlies a whole family of everyday words such as 'equal', 'equator', 'adequate', and 'equity', so recognising that 'equ' core is the surest way to keep the spelling steady. The trap for writers is the unstressed middle: the 'qua' is sounded as a quick 'kwol', yet the letters still spell out the visible 'equal' hiding inside.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• equ- (equal, from Latin aequus)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ity (noun suffix forming a state or quality)