Disadvantage, detriment, handicap, drawback mean something which interferes with the success or well-being of a person or thing.
Disadvantage often implies an act, circumstance, or condition which threatens to affect or does actually affect a person or thing unfavorably or injuriously.
It may therefore suggest a mere deprivation of advantage or, more positively, an appreciable loss or injury.
Detriment usually implies a suffering of harm or a sustaining of damage or a cause of harm or damage but carries no direct indication of the extent of actual or probable harm or damage; it is therefore often used in the negative phrase “without detriment” assuring safety with regard either to the past or to the future.
Handicap retains a suggestion of its application to a competitive struggle (see ADVANTAGE) but greatly extends that application to include various struggles into which an ordinary individual may be pushed by inclination or circumstances; it also refers to a disadvantage under which the person so placed must live or work.
Drawback applies especially to a disadvantage that serves to retard a person’s or thing’s progress or advance in any way.
Often, however, it means no more than an objectionable feature of a person or thing that constitutes a disadvantage from some point of view usually implicit in the context.