{
  "id": "ability.capacity",
  "term": "ability",
  "sense": "capacity",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 19,
  "arena": "ability",
  "domain": "daily",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "a capacity to do something that results from having enough energy and a regular pattern of process.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "energy.capacity",
      "regular.frequency",
      "process.general",
      "capacity.size",
      "enough.sufficient",
      "pattern.regularity",
      "potential.capacity",
      "results.outcome"
    ],
    "interaction": "energy and a regular pattern of process combine to create a capacity to do something.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "sustained potential",
      "structured readiness",
      "effective threshold"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "A hummingbird hovers at 50 wingbeats per second, sustained by rapid nectar metabolism.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The International Space Station maintains orbital position through periodic thruster burns.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "Wikipedia edits by volunteer users keep article accuracy stable across millions of entries.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "capacity.size",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    },
    {
      "id": "control.ability",
      "note": "enables",
      "type": "enables"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "able.capacity",
    "agency.capacity",
    "cognitive.mental",
    "memory.cognitive",
    "skill.ability"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "abilities",
    "ability"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Definition was factually incomplete — relied on omitted constitutive concepts like 'enough.sufficient' and 'potential.capacity'. Added missing components to align record with definition's actual ontol"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-ability.capacity"
}