equity.

1. Fairness in how interests, needs, opportunities or burdens are treated, taking relevant differences into account.

2. The ownership interest remaining in an asset or organization after relevant liabilities are deducted.

3. Shares representing ownership interests in companies, especially when considered as an investment class.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• social equity
• equity in access

On the page

Equity in access required attention to barriers that an identical fee would not remove.

The policy’s claim to social equity was assessed against who received its benefits and bore its costs.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable; plural equities denotes ownership shares or distinct equitable claims in the relevant contexts. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: moderately common.