Crossword clues for incompetent
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Incompetent \In*com"pe*tent\, a. [L. incompetens: cf. F. incomp['e]tent. See In- not, and Competent.]
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Not competent; wanting in adequate strength, power, capacity, means, qualifications, or the like; incapable; unable; inadequate; unfit.
Incompetent to perform the duties of the place.
--Macaulay. -
(Law) 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 mentally defective person is incompetent to care for himself and requires a legal guardian.
Richard III. had a resolution, out of hatred to his brethren, to disable their issues, upon false and incompetent pretexts, the one of attainder, the other of illegitimation.
--Bacon. -
Not lying within one's competency, capacity, or authorized power; not permissible.
Syn: Incapable; unable; inadequate; insufficient; inefficient; disqualified; unfit; improper.
Usage: Incompetent, Incapable. Incompetent is a relative term, denoting a lack of the requisite qualifications for performing a given act, service, etc.; incapable is absolute in its meaning, denoting lack of power, either natural or moral. We speak of a man as incompetent to a certain task, of an incompetent judge, etc. We say of an idiot that he is incapable of learning to read; and of a man distinguished for his honor, that he is incapable of a mean action.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1610s, "insufficient," from French incompétent, from Late Latin incompetentem (nominative incompetens) "insufficient," from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + Latin competentem (see competent). Sense of "lacking qualification or ability" first recorded 1630s. The noun meaning "incompetent person" is from 1866. Related: Incompetently.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Unskilled, lacking normally expected degree of ability. 2 Unable to make rational decisions, insane or otherwise cognitively impaired. 3 (context: medical) an ''incompetent cervix'' is one that opens too early in pregnancy, provoking the baby to be born. n. A person who is incompetent.
WordNet
n. someone who is not competent to take effective action [syn: incompetent person]
adj. not qualified or suited for a purpose; "an incompetent secret service"; "the filming was hopeless incompetent" [ant: competent]
showing lack of skill or aptitude; "a bungling workman"; "did a clumsy job"; "his fumbling attempt to put up a shelf" [syn: bungling, clumsy, fumbling]
not doing a good job; "incompetent at chess" [syn: unskilled]
not meeting requirements; "unequal to the demands put upon him" [syn: incapable, unequal to(p)]
Usage examples of "incompetent".
It seemed that Kevarsh was as incompetent at running the household abovestairs as he was below.
James McHenry, an incompetent but affable man whom Adams rather liked.
Our army and cavalla were little better, shunned and mocked when they abandoned their uniforms to become beggars, despised as cowards and incompetents if they chose to remain in the service of the king.
The Directoire suffered heavily in prestige by the events of a war which it had so lightly provoked and was so incompetent to conduct.
The danger was too great for the dogs, their handlers and the Marines they were leading: incompetent scouting was a deadly formula.
I believe I shall come here and buy this shop at an amazingly cheap price, turn these incompetents out on their ear, and make a go of dressmaking myself.
I read, the more I was convinced that I had given such an opinion as must stamp me the most incompetent, or the falsest of critics.
Tracing the views of Christians as to the nature of the soul, and the life to come in heaven or hell, back to the rude conceptions of the naked savages who fashioned their idea of the ghost from the shadow or the reflection of the man, which was a picture or representative of him, yet without matter, and from the phenomena of dreams, in which they supposed the spirit of the man left him and went through the adventures of the dream and returned ere he awoke it has been asserted that every form of later faith, however refined and improved in details, yet really resting on such puerile fancies, such incompetent and absurd beginnings, is thereby discredited and must be rejected.
He claims he was completely out of it, incompetent to stand trial, and yet it went on without him getting any medical attention, without him even being checked by a doctor.
The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal and incompetent to the last degree.
Russia fell to the Bolsheviks, it was because of the corrupt and incompetent leadership of the Tsar and his cronies.
Magadha, the chief councilor does the actual work of administering the country, aided by some thirty councilors, many of them hereditary and most of them incompetent.
Nonpol, however, was not officered by incompetents but experts who knew enough of the situation to realize that the cybernetic brain now in virtual control of the Earth might have other means of observation.
He will be grouped, along with presidents like Grant and Harding, as a corrupt and incompetent mockery of the American Dream he praised so long and loud in all his speeches.
You have not only the honor of being my steward, but the privilege of being the worst, most incompetent, drivelling snivelling jibbering jabbering idiot of a steward in France.