(n.) The quality or state of being unable; lack of ability; want of sufficient power, strength, resources, or capacity.
Example Sentences:
(1) Technical factors that account for increased difficulty in these patients include: problems with guide catheter impaction and ostial trauma; inability to inflate the balloon with adequate guide catheter support; and need for increased intracoronary manipulation.
(2) The mother in Arthur Ransome's children's classic, Swallows and Amazons, is something of a cipher, but her inability to make basic decisions does mean she receives one of the finest telegrams in all literature.
(3) Major limitations of the conventional sperm penetration assay are the inability to assess several aspects of sperm function (zona binding and penetration) and the absence of human ovulatory products known to influence fertilization.
(4) While cells that were treated with antibody were unable to aggregate because of the inability to destroy cAMP, they aggregated normally when washed free of antibody.
(5) Cessation of coital activity was associated with specified types of stress between 65 and 70 years of age in the subgroup of men who had stopped due to inability; six out of eight reported stress against five out of 20 in the C group, P less than 0.05.
(6) The patient was referred to the podiatry department because of continued discomfort and the inability to run.
(7) Localization of the receptor binding domain within the C-terminal region of PA was suggested by the inability of the monoclonal antibodies 3B6 and 14B7 to recognize the recombinant proteins expressed by C-terminal deletions of the pag gene.
(8) The most frequent presentation is the inability to retain the external prosthesis.
(9) Fibroblastic cells were characterized by their spindle shape, content of a mucopolysaccharide, their relative inability to synthesize infectious influenza virus, and production of a cell-associated noninfectious hemagglutinin.
(10) The determination of circulating biologically active PTH in the rat has been difficult due at least in part to the inability to develop an antibody suitable for RIA of rat PTH.
(11) We now provide evidence strongly suggesting that the primary defect in Lec8 and Clone 13 cells is their inability to translocate UDP-galactose into the lumen of the Golgi apparatus.
(12) A major limitation of 3-D CT is its inability to reconstruct the pathology of soft tissues with the same fidelity afforded bony structures.
(13) The researchers suggested that the inability to establish relationships may be due to a function of methods, sample size, or a reflection of a different population.
(14) First, chains are constrained by their inability to penetrate the boundary.
(15) The sequence of the murine protein differs from that of the human protein in 10% of residues, and it may be presumed that some of these differences are responsible for the inability of gibbon ape leukemia virus to infect mouse fibroblasts.
(16) Thus, children's early difficulty in reading may be one sign of a general inability to selectively attend to the parts of any perceptual wholes.
(17) As there is evidence for the relative inability of infants to synthesize taurine, this nitrogen compound has to be wholly supplied by the mother during pregnancy and by diet after birth, particularly for the prematures who have to constitute appreciable reserves in their tissues.
(18) The inability of these young smokers to enhance their mucus clearance by cough suggests a change in the mucociliary apparatus from normal.
(19) An additional 17 patients considered highly in need of treatment met criteria for commitment based on inability to care for self, but most were hospitalized voluntarily.
(20) Phosphoglyceride and triacylglycerol biosynthesis in glycerol kinase deficiency fibroblasts is not diminished by the inability to use glycerol as a precursor of glycerol 3-phosphate.
Incomprehension
Definition:
(n.) Want of comprehension or understanding.
Example Sentences:
(1) To a generation of young Germans, raised under the crushing, introspective guilt of postwar Germany , the sight of such facile antics was simply incomprehensible.
(2) Kerry added that it would have been “offensive and incomprehensible” to leave Bergdahl in Afghanistan, where Obama is quickly winding down the US military presence – a process he recently said would be complete by the end of 2016.
(3) Old people and young people have always regarded one another with suspicion and incomprehension.
(4) An attorney for Crawford’s family described their decision as “absolutely incomprehensible”.
(5) It does get to be a bit of an atmosphere of an extended family of people who have this process in common that is such a major part of their life – and yet almost incomprehensible to the outside world.” Like all family gatherings, things can get emotional.
(6) It is no longer possible to assess the quality of most products on the basis of physical examination, and labels often carry information that is incomprehensible to lay persons.
(7) According to Freud our actions and behaviour are often unconsciously motivated and frequently incomprehensible for ourselves.
(8) All the interviews supported the notion of an arbitrary norm for pay, which almost all firms felt was grossly and inappropriately high … The general view of search firms is that a lower norm would not materially affect what happens.” One headhunter said: “I think there are an awful lot of FTSE 100 CEOs who are pretty mediocre.” Another added: “I think that the wage drift over the past 10 years, or the salary drift, has been inexcusable, incomprehensible, and it is very serious for the social fabric of the country.” The findings are being made public just as an analysis by the High Pay Centre thinktank shows that the average pay of a chief executive – including pensions, share options and bonuses – stands at about £4.6m.
(9) FDA delay in approval of propranolol for essential hypertension is totally incomprehensible.
(10) Admittedly, it was not as bad as Miles' frankly incomprehensible hair, to say nothing about the self-harm-inducing scene in which they all "threw shapes" to the Manic Street Preachers, but relative improvement is not exactly a recommendation.
(11) Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, added that he found it incomprehensible that an inquiry had not been mounted by the government into whether there had been a breach of the code.
(12) For five nights, Saturday to Wednesday, the Ferguson city and St Louis county police departments betrayed hostility, incomprehension and fear as they confronted protesters, heedless that the militarised response had stoked anger and radicalism over Brown's death.
(13) Utterly incomprehensible,” he told reporters in Canberra.
(14) The new analyses of text that were introduced in the 1960s have rendered the subject, at its cutting edge, incomprehensible to all but the initiated.
(15) In fact, about 3 hours before and 15 minutes after the third dose of flumequine (2 tablets of 400 mg), this makes the total dose taken over 12 hours is equal to 400 x 4 = 1,600 mg, the patient developed an intense discomfort with blurred vision accompanied by nausea, followed by a state of restlessness and incomprehensible speech.
(16) Pyne on Saturday called on the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, to join the government in strongly condemning the "incomprehensible" behaviour of the students who were protesting on Friday against proposed cuts to higher education funding.
(17) "When she came out with some particularly garbled bit of folklore and was met with the usual amusement and incomprehension, she retorted 'It may be an old fallacy, but it's true!'
(18) The public have waited long enough and will find it incomprehensible that the report is not being published more rapidly than the open-ended timetable you have now set out.
(19) "Their exclusion from the government's shortlist of technologies being assessed is utterly incomprehensible," said FOE Cymru director Gordon James.
(20) "The grief of a stillbirth is unlike any other form of grief: the months of excitement and expectation, planning, eager questions, and the drama of labour – all magnifying the devastating incomprehension of giving birth to a baby bearing no signs of life."