quality
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From Middle English, from Old French qualité, from Latin qualitatem, accusative of qualitas, from qualis (“‘of what kind’”), from Proto-Indo-European pronominal base *kwo- (“‘who, how’”). Cicero coined qualitas as a calque to translate the Ancient Greek word ποιότης (poiotes), “‘quality’”), coined by Plato from ποῖος (poios), “‘of what nature, of what kind’”).
[edit] Pronunciation
- IPA: /'kwɒl.ɪ.ti/, /'kwɑl.ɪ.ti/
- Audio (US)help, file
[edit] Noun
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Singular |
Plural |
quality (countable and uncountable; plural qualities)
- (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.
- (countable) A property or 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.
- (thermodynamics) In a two-phase liquid-vapor mixture, the ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of the mixture.
- (archaic) High social position.
- 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.
- (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.
[edit] Synonyms
- See also Wikisaurus:characteristic
[edit] Derived terms
- human quality
- industrial quality
- quality time
- quality of life
- Total Quality Management
- TQM
- qualitative
[edit] Related terms
[edit] Translations
level of excellence
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differentiating property or attribute
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ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of a two-phase liquid-vapor mixture
social position
- 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.
[edit] Adjective
quality (comparative more quality, superlative most quality)
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Positive |
Comparative |
Superlative |
- 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.
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
being of good worth
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[edit] Related terms
[edit] External links
- quality in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- quality in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- quality at OneLook® Dictionary Search