Incompetent
[ɪn'kɒmpɪt(ə)nt] or [ɪn'kɑmpɪtənt]
Definition
(noun.) someone who is not competent to take effective action.
(adj.) not qualified or suited for a purpose; 'an incompetent secret service'; 'the filming was hopeless incompetent' .
(adj.) legally not qualified or sufficient; 'a wife is usually considered unqualified to testify against her husband'; 'incompetent witnesses' .
(adj.) not doing a good job; 'incompetent at chess' .
Checker: Nellie--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Not competent; wanting in adequate strength, power, capacity, means, qualifications, or the like; incapable; unable; inadequate; unfit.
(a.) Wanting the legal or constitutional qualifications; inadmissible; as, a person professedly wanting in religious belief is an incompetent witness in a court of law or equity; incompetent evidence.
(a.) Not lying within one's competency, capacity, or authorized power; not permissible.
Typist: Nola
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. [1]. Unable, incapable, not competent.[2]. Insufficient, inadequate.[3]. Disqualified, incapacitated, unfit, unfitted.
Edited by Lizzie
Synonyms and Antonyms
[See ADEQUATE]
Typist: Molly
Definition
adj. wanting adequate powers: wanting the proper legal qualifications: insufficient.—ns. Incom′petence Incom′petency.—adv. Incom′petently.
Edited by Adela
Examples
- There can seldom have been a statesman of the first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the Council Chamber. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV, and an incompetent imitator of his predecessor's magnificence. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The Russian autocracy was dishonest and incompetent. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- All other nations were represented as incompetent and decadent; the Prussians were the leaders and regenerators of mankind. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- This was quite according to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whomsoever employed, is always against his employer. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- That would at once set you down as incompetent for your office. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- As the game became more universally played, a better class of billiard-room keepers entered the commercial field, thus helping to eliminate the incompetent and vicious. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- In my opinion, said Lydgate, legal training only makes a man more incompetent in questions that require knowledge a of another kind. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- They perceived that the Legislative Assembly, so clipped of all experience, must certainly be a politically incompetent body. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The theorist is incompetent when he deals with socialism just because he assumes that men are determined by logic and that a false conclusion will stop a moving, creative force. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- It was a rather hard position for me, for if I took the report without breaking, it would prove the previous Boston operator incompetent. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- The next year was also a year of failure for the incompetents of the Senate. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Typist: Rosanna