competence

Noun

competence (countable and uncountable, plural competences)

1. (uncountable) The quality or state of being competent, i.e. able or suitable for a general role.
   • Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative competence.2005, Lies Sercu, Ewa Bandura, Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Competence: An International Investigation
2. (countable) The quality or state of being able or suitable for a particular task; the quality or state of being competent for a particular task or skill.
3. The system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language, as opposed to its actual use in concrete situations (performance), cf. linguistic competence.
4. (dated) A sustainable income.
   • Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, / Lie in three words — health, peace, and competence.1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC
   • “money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned.”1811, Jane Austen, chapter 17, in Sense and Sensibility
5. (countable) the legal authority to deal with a matter.
   • The bill was denied royal assent because the Scottish Parliament does not have legislative competence on the bill's matter.
   • K C Wheare's definition of federalism requires that two governments be independent and co-ordinate within their own spheres, generally set out by the division of competences codified in a constitution, which is supreme.2016, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, “Division of competences in the European Union”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
6. The degree to which a rock is resistant to deformation or flow.