Pronunciation Noun
iniquity
- (uncountable) Deviation from what is right#Adjective|right; gross#Adjective|gross injustice, sin#Noun|sin, wickedness.
- c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. […] (First Quarto), London: Printed by N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1622, OCLC 724111485 ↗, [Act IV, scene i], page 66 ↗:
- If you be ſo fond ouer her iniquity, giue her patent to offend, for if it touches not you, it comes neere no body.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Job 15:15–16 ↗:
- Beholde, he putteth no truſt in his Saints, yea, the heauens are not cleane in his ſight. How much more abominable and filthie is man, which drinketh iniquitie like water?
- 1900, Leo Tolstoy, “Lydia Shoústova’s Home”, in Louise Maude, transl., Resurrection: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, OCLC 231922665 ↗, book II, page 336 ↗:
- Nekhlúdoff awoke next morning feeling as if he had been guilty of some iniquity the day before. He began considering. He could not remember having done anything wrong; he had committed no evil act, but he had had evil thoughts.
- (countable) An act#Noun|act of great#Adjective|great injustice or unfairness; a sinful or wicked#Adjective|wicked act; an unconscionable deed#Noun|deed.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Job 31:11 ↗, column 2:
- For this is an heinous crime, yea, it is an iniquitie to bee puniſhed by the Judges.
- 1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Of the Office of Our Blessed Saviour”, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: Printed [by William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], OCLC 895063360 ↗, third part (Of a Christian Common-wealth), page 261 ↗:
- [A]s for the other [goat], which was the Scape Goat, he [{{w
- 1853, Solomon Northup, chapter XIX, in [David Wilson], editor, Twelve Years a Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northrup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River, in Louisiana, London: Sampson Low, Son & Co.; Auburn, N.Y.: Derby and Miller, OCLC 14877269 ↗, page 268 ↗:
- I would say that Slavery was an iniquity, and ought to be abolished. I would say there was no reason nor justice in the law, or the constitution that allows one man to hold another man in bondage.
- French: iniquité
- German: Frevel
- Portuguese: iniquidade
- Russian: несправедли́вость
- Spanish: iniquidad
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