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incompetent
[ in-kom-pi-tuhnt ]
adjective
- not competent; lacking qualification or ability; incapable:
an incompetent candidate.
Synonyms: unfit, inadequate, unqualified
- characterized by or showing incompetence:
His incompetent acting ruined the play.
- Law.
- being unable or legally unqualified to perform specified acts or to be held legally responsible for such acts.
- inadmissible, as evidence.
noun
- an incompetent person; a mentally deficient person.
- Law. a person lacking power to act with legal effectiveness.
incompetent
/ ɪnˈkɒmpɪtənt /
adjective
- not possessing the necessary ability, skill, etc to do or carry out a task; incapable
- marked by lack of ability, skill, etc
- law not legally qualified
an incompetent witness
- (of rock strata, folds, etc) yielding readily to pressure so as to undergo structural deformation
noun
- an incompetent person
Derived Forms
- inˈcompetently, adverb
- inˈcompetence, noun
Other Words From
- in·compe·tent·ly adverb
Word History and Origins
Origin of incompetent1
Synonym Study
Example Sentences
Early on, the sexual protagonist complains that her Molson-drinking husband is pretty much an incompetent Neanderthal.
The cops were as incompetent as they often appear to be in the Holmes stories.
Insufficient protocols or incompetent practices for and by the nurses in the hospital hot zone.
To buy that you would have to accept that Brooks was either negligent or incompetent.
According to the historian John Saunders, he was a “weak, vain, incompetent and cowardly” leader.
It is the fashion there to regard it merely as a device to help an incompetent organist.
In such incompetent hands the malt business soon fell to be a liability rather than an asset.
Promotion came speedily when the guillotine cleared the way in the higher ranks by removing the incompetent and unfortunate.
The acts done under incompetent rulers, by those who disapprove of their claims, come from neither.
It was inelastic, incompetent to adapt itself to changing circumstances.
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