limitation

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Latin limitatio. Morphologically limit + -ation.

1. The act of limiting or the state of being limited.
2. A restriction; a boundary, real or metaphorical, caused by some thing or some circumstance.

   “Getting into his wheelchair after his amputation, it felt like a limitation you could roll in.”

   “He understood the exam material, but his fear was a limitation he could not overcome.”

3. An imperfection or shortcoming that limits something's use or value.

   “Both the MI score and the t-score have their limitations. MI computes a logarithm representing the number of co-occurrences of words compared to their occurrences apart in the corpus, which can highlight rare collocations if the components tend not to occur with other words. The t-score formula is less susceptible to this but its numerical result cannot be meaningfully compared across corpora of different sizes.”

4. A time period after which some legal action may no longer be brought.

   “The lawyer obtained impunity by dragging his obviously guilty client's case beyond the ten-year limitation.”