Incompetence Meaning
/ˌɪˈnkɑmpətəns/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn inability to perform; a lack of competence; ineptitude.
Sentence Examples
Is his failure ascribable to incompetence or to bad luck?
His incompetence began to irritate everyone.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The manager's ____ led to the project failing because he made many errors.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The manager was finally fired for his total ____ and repeated failure to meet critical deadlines.
Word Origin & History
From French incompétence, equivalent to in- + competence.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"... at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck"
— 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
"Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate."
— 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:
"The factory where she worked was a poisonous mass of incompetence, favoritism, and sabotage."
— 1974, Ursula Leguin, The Dispossessed:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The manager's ____ led to the project failing because he made many errors.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The manager was finally fired for his total ____ and repeated failure to meet critical deadlines.