different between quality vs illegibility

English

Etymology

From Middle English [Term?], from Old French qualité, from Latin qu?lit?tem, accusative of qu?lit?s, from qu?lis (“of what kind”), from Proto-Indo-European *k?o- (“who, how”). Cicero coined qualitas as a calque to translate the Ancient Greek word ??????? (poiót?s, “quality”), coined by Plato from ????? (poîos, “of what nature, of what kind”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kw?l?ti/
• (UK, obsolete) IPA^(key): /?kwæl?ti/, /?kwæl?t?/
• (US, father-bother merger, weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?kw?l?ti/, [?k?w????i]

Noun

quality (countable and uncountable, plural qualities)

1. (uncountable) Level of excellence.
   • 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     He called for China’s cooperation in efforts to improve air quality.

2. (countable) A property or an attribute that differentiates a thing or person.
3. (archaic) High social position. (See also the quality.)

4. (uncountable) The degree to which a man-made object or system is free from bugs and flaws, as opposed to scope of functions or quantity of items.
5. (thermodynamics) In a two-phase liquid–vapor mixture, the ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of the mixture.
6. (emergency medicine, countable) The third step in OPQRST where the responder investigates what the NOI/MOI feels like.

7. (countable, Britain, journalism) A newspaper with relatively serious, high-quality content.
   • 1998, Bill Coxall, Lynton Robins, Robert Leach, Contemporary British Politics (page 164)

     It is argued that in the last ten years or so, quality broadsheet newspapers have become more like the tabloids. Anthony Sampson has argued that 'the frontier between the qualities and popular papers has virtually disappeared'.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often applied to "quality": high, good, excellent, exceptional, great, outstanding, satisfactory, acceptable, sufficient, adequate, poor, low, bad, inferior, dubious, environmental, visual, optical, industrial, total, artistic, educational, physical, musical, chemical, spiritual, intellectual, architectural, mechanical.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:characteristic

Hyponyms

• human quality
• industrial quality

Coordinate terms

• (a property that differentiates): quiddity

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

quality (comparative more quality, superlative most quality)

1. Being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose.

Derived terms

• qualityness

Related terms

• qualia
• qualitative

Translations

References

• Quality (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• quality in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• quality in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• quality at OneLook Dictionary Search

English

Noun

illegibility (countable and uncountable, plural illegibilities)

1. The characteristic or quality of being illegible; the quality of being difficult or impossible to read.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 15,^[1]

     “Poor thing! poor thing!” says Briggs (who was thinking of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished in her old desk upstairs).

   • 1937, Kenneth Gandar-Dower, The Spotted Lion, Chapter Four, p. 144,^[2]

     I passed the time by adding to the illegibilities in my diary.

   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, 2001, Part One, Chapter 4,

     And on the back endpaper of the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare, a work of fatiguing illegibility, he wrote the names in large letters, as though his succession had already been settled.

   The illegibility of his handwriting made it unclear which answer he wrote.

Antonyms

• legibility

Translations