Inept Meaning
/ɪˈnɛpt/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjNot able to do something; not proficient; displaying incompetence.
adjUnfit; unsuitable.
Sentence Examples
They are a bunch of inept and aggressive cretins..
I'm not usually this inept.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ chef burned the entire dinner and cut his finger badly.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The waiter was so ____ that he dropped several full glasses of water on the floor at once.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Middle French inepte, from Latin ineptus, from in- + aptus (whence English apt).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Stewing over recent legal defeats, he [Donald Trump] spent Sunday night posting a series of rambling rants assailing the “completely inept and embarrassing” Supreme Court, the “Deranged” former special counsel, […] and “a Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control Judge” who ruled against him."
— 2026 March 16, Peter Baker, “In Choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump Names a War and Defines His Presidency”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
"The bungled phrase, the slipshod paragraph, the inept metaphor, the irrelevant excursion, the disproportionate development, the feeble conclusion, are indeed all failures of meaning, and the more poetically ambitious the verbal structure in which they occur, the deeper and more substantive the failure may be."
— 1954, W. K. Wimsatt, The Verbal Icon, University Press of Kentucky, page xiii:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ chef burned the entire dinner and cut his finger badly.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The waiter was so ____ that he dropped several full glasses of water on the floor at once.