EQUITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does equity mean? 

• EQUITY (noun)
  The noun EQUITY has 3 senses:

1. the difference between the market value of a property and the claims held against it

2. the ownership interest of shareholders in a corporation

3. conformity with rules or standards

  Familiarity information: EQUITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EQUITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The difference between the market value of a property and the claims held against it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Hypernyms ("equity" is a kind of...):

assets (anything of material value or usefulness that is owned by a person or company)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The ownership interest of shareholders in a corporation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Hypernyms ("equity" is a kind of...):

interest; stake ((law) a right or legal share of something; a financial involvement with something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "equity"):

sweat equity (interest in a building that a tenant earns by contributing to its renovation or maintenance)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Conformity with rules or standards

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

equity; fairness

Context example:

the judge recognized the fairness of my claim

Hypernyms ("equity" is a kind of...):

justice; justness (the quality of being just or fair)

Attribute:

fair; just (free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception; conforming with established standards or rules)

unfair; unjust (not fair; marked by injustice or partiality or deception)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "equity"):

non-discrimination (fairness in treating people without prejudice)

sportsmanship (fairness in following the rules of the game)

Antonym:

inequity (injustice by virtue of not conforming with rules or standards)

 Context examples 

You may be given equity in the firm if you were an early hire or be offered a special year-end bonus.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

But there is a certain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was this sense in him that resented the unfairness of his being permitted no defence against the stone-throwers.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons,—a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard—what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She wanted more vigorous measures, a more complete reformation, a quicker release from debt, a much higher tone of indifference for everything but justice and equity.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Miss Bertram's engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He said, it was common, when two Yahoos discovered such a stone in a field, and were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away from them both; which my master would needs contend to have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us; because the plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they contended for: whereas our courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had any thing left.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)