quality

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English[edit]

Wikipedia Wikipedia

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English, from Old French qualité, from Latin qualitatem, accusative of qualitas, from qualis (of what kind), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷo- (who, how). Cicero coined qualitas as a calque to translate the Ancient Greek word ποιότης (poiótes, quality), coined by Plato from ποῖος (poios, of what nature, of what kind).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA: /ˈkwɒl.ɪ.ti/, /ˈkwɑl.ɪ.ti/
  • (file)

Noun[edit]

quality (countable and uncountable; plural qualities)

  1. (uncountable) Level of excellence
    This school is well-known for having teachers of high quality.
    Quality of life is usually determined by health, education, and income.
    • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter I:
      “I'll tell you what you're going to do. Have you a clean shirt?” “Several.” “And a toothbrush?” “Two, both of the finest quality.” “Then pack them. You're coming to Brinkley tomorrow.”
  2. (emergency medicine, countable) The third step in OPQRST where the responder investigates what the NOI/MOI feels like.
    To identify quality try asking, "what does it feel like?".
  3. (countable) A property or an attribute that differentiates a thing or person.
    One of the qualities of pure iron is that it does not rust easily.
    While being impulsive can be great for artists, it is not a desirable quality for engineers.
    Security, stability, and efficiency are good qualities of an operating system.
    • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XX:
      “That's life,” she said, and buzzed off to keep her vigil, leaving me kicking myself because I'd forgotten to say anything about the quality of mercy not being strained. It isn't, as I dare say you know, and a mention of this might just have done the trick.
  4. (thermodynamics) In a two-phase liquidvapor mixture, the ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of the mixture.
  5. (archaic) High social position. (See also the quality.)
    A peasant is not allowed to fall in love with a lady of quality.
    Membership of this golf club is limited to those of quality and wealth.
  6. (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.

Usage notes[edit]

  • 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[edit]

Coordinate terms[edit]

  • (a property that differentiates): quiddity

Derived terms[edit]

Look at pages starting with quality.

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Adjective[edit]

quality (comparative more quality, superlative most quality)

  1. Being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose.
    We only sell quality products.
    That was a quality game by Jim Smith.
    A quality system ensures products meet customer requirements.
    • a. 2003, Harriet (a Cambridge University student), quoted in John Ahier, John Beck, Rob Moore, Graduate Citizens?: Issues of Citizenship and Higher Education, Routledge (2003), ISBN 978-0-415-25722-0, page 114:
      I mean a lot of the money that obviously goes into universities and their libraries and their facilities and their academics and stuff but I mean I haven’t had a very quality degree to be honest. I think the quality of my education has been crap . . .
    • 2004, Vance M. Thompson, MD, in J. Kevin Belville and Ronald J. Smith (editors), LASIK Techniques: Pearls and Pitfalls, SLACK Incorporated, ISBN 978-1-55642-622-3, page 187:
      For one I wanted to have what I considered a very quality tracking device.
    • 2008, Carl Erskine, in Fay Vincent, We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1-4165-5342-7, page 144:
      A very quality ball club; that was the Braves.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Related terms[edit]

External links[edit]