Obs. [f. UNABLE a.] The condition of being unable; inability, incapacity; disability. (Very common c. 1500–1660.)
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 245. Siche men as desiren benefices schulden not haue hem, but men þat fleen hem for drede of vnabilnesse of hemself & grete charge, as dide moyses.
c. 1425. Found. St. Bartholomew’s (E.E.T.S.), 4. Promysynge that he wolde be ware of alle passid vahabilnesse, and yeue affectualy his diligence and laboure to that he hathe promysyd.
1501. in Lett. Rich. III. & Hen. VII. (Rolls), II. 100. The … commissary hath full power to dispense with that irregularity and to take away all infamy and unableness.
1560. Pilkington, Expos. Aggeus (1562), 172. He biddeth us when we feele oure weakness & unablenes to fulfil his law, to come unto hym.
1638. Junius, Paint. Ancients, 37. There is in us a certaine unablenesse of imitating such things as doe not very well agree with our naturall disposition.
1648. Boyle, Seraph. Love, xiii. (1700), 71. To convince the World of their unableness to emerge and recover out of that deep Abyss, wherein the load of Sin … had precipitated Fall’n Man.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), s.v. Inability.
