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disparity

/dɪˈsperəti//dɪˈspærəti/·noun
a great and often unfair difference between two things or groups
Fig. 1 — A plank rests across a single fulcrum, wildly out of balance: a great heavy sandbag on one end, a single pebble on the other.
01Definition

A disparity is a difference big enough to demand an explanation. The word comes from the Latin dispar, 'unequal' — par, 'equal', survives in 'parity' and 'peer' — and it is rarely neutral: where 'difference' merely describes, disparity quietly accuses. Incomes show disparities, health outcomes show disparities, regions show disparities, and in each case the word implies that the two things being compared started from the same floor and should not have ended up this far apart.

02In use
  • iUrban and rural incomes continue to diverge, and the disparity is now impossible to ignore.
  • iiResearchers documented stark disparities in access to basic healthcare.
  • iiiThere remains a conspicuous disparity between the company's promises and its results.
03Collocations
  • income disparity
  • the disparity between X and Y
  • regional disparities
  • a glaring disparity
  • reduce disparities

Family disparate (adjective) · parity (noun — the opposite state)

04Relations

=gap, imbalance, inequality, gulf, discrepancy

≠parity, equality, balance

05Compared
PairThe difference
disparity vs discrepancya discrepancy is a mismatch that should not be there; a disparity is a large imbalance, usually inequality.
06TOEFL & IELTS

An IELTS essay and Task 1 essential: 'a marked disparity between the two figures' outclasses 'a big difference' in chart descriptions, and essays on inequality lean on 'income/regional disparities'. TOEFL social-science passages use 'health disparities' as a technical term. Mind the cousin word 'disparate' (/ˈdɪspərət/ — different in kind), and keep 'parity' ready as its precise opposite.

07Asked
What is the difference between disparity and difference?
Difference is neutral — any way two things are not the same. Disparity is a difference that ought not to be there: a gap between things that started level and should have stayed closer. 'A difference in pay' merely notes it; 'a pay disparity' quietly accuses. The scene above is disparity, not difference — a sandbag against a pebble, an imbalance that should not stand.
What does 'income disparity' mean?
The gap between what different groups earn, framed as an unfair or systematic imbalance rather than a mere spread of figures. The same charge rides in gender disparity, regional disparity and health disparity: each names a gap that tracks who is advantaged, not just how the numbers differ. That is why social science reaches for disparity over difference.
Is disparity always negative?
Almost always — it carries an implicit complaint that the gap is unjust or should not exist. Public-health researchers even define a 'health disparity' narrowly as a difference that falls on already-disadvantaged groups, not any difference at all. Where 'variation' or 'difference' stays neutral, disparity has picked a side before the sentence ends.
What is the difference between disparate and disparity?
Disparity is the noun (the gap); disparate is the adjective, but it means 'fundamentally different in kind', not 'unequal' — 'disparate sources', 'disparate fields'. And the stress jumps: DISS-per-it for the adjective, dis-PARR-it-ee for the noun. Same Latin root dispar, 'unequal', two different jobs.
How do you pronounce disparity?
Dis-PARR-uh-tee — four syllables, stress on the second. Do not carry over the adjective's front stress from disparate (DISS-per-it); the noun moves it back. The US and UK differ slightly in the stressed vowel (US /e/, UK /æ/), both keeping the stress on that second syllable.
What is the opposite of disparity?
Parity — equality, the state of being on a level, which sits inside disparity as its own root (dis- undoes par, 'equal'). 'Wage parity', 'parity of esteem': where disparity accuses a gap, parity names its closing. Equality and equity are the everyday opposites; parity is the precise, etymological one.
What is the difference between disparity and discrepancy?
The compressed tell: a discrepancy is an inconsistency that suggests an error (two figures that should match but don't), while a disparity is an inequality that suggests unfairness. The full contrast, with both animated scenes, is on the discrepancy vs disparity page in the 'Compared' list above.