Iniquity/inequity

For some reason which neither of us can remember, John and I were talking about iniquities this morning. He pointed out that if there is iniquity or wickedness then there should be iquity or righteousness. This being the kind of conversation we love to beat to death, I looked up iniquity on www.etymonline.com. It seems that iniquity comes from the Latin in (not) and aequus (equal, just). While iniquity does mean a gross injustice, most people think of it as wickedness. Taking this one step further, why do we have the word inequity when we already have a perfectly good meaning in iniquity? The reason for this, I think, is that we have the word equity and to make the opposite somebody stuck “in” in front of it.

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