Iniquity means serious injustice or wickedness. When something involves iniquity, it's deeply unjust in a way that harms people and violates what's right.

Throughout history, people have fought against iniquities like systems that denied basic rights to certain groups or laws that treated people cruelly based on who they were. When a society allows iniquity to continue, it means wrong actions are happening on a large scale, with some people looking the other way.

You might read about the iniquity of child labor during the Industrial Revolution, when young children worked dangerous jobs for long hours instead of going to school. Or you might encounter the word in older literature, where characters struggle against the iniquity they see around them.

The word carries weight and seriousness. You wouldn't use it to describe someone cutting in line at lunch. That's just rude. But a system that deliberately treats one group of students worse than another, denying them opportunities the others receive? That approaches iniquity. The word reminds us that some wrongs are so severe they demand attention to set things right.