an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone; "the quality of mercy is not strained"--Shakespeare
a degree or grade of excellence or worth; "the quality of students has risen"; "an executive of low caliber"
a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something; "each town has a quality all its own"; "the radical character of our demands"
high social status; "a man of quality"
of high social status; "people of quality"; "a quality family"
facing or experiencing financial trouble or difficulty; "distressed companies need loans and technical advice"; "financially hard-pressed Mexican hotels are lowering their prices"; "we were hard put to meet the mortgage paymentng"; "it was apparent that the magazine was in trouble"; "found themselves in a bad way financially"
an oppressive quality that is laborious and solemn and lacks grace or fluency; "a book so serious that it sometimes subsided into ponderousness"; "his lectures tend to heaviness and repetition"
marked by deprivation especially of the necessities of life or healthful environmental influences; "a childhood that was unhappy and deprived, the family living off charity"; "boys from a deprived environment, wherein the family life revealed a pattern of neglect, moral degradation, and disregard for law"