competences

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
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.
6. The degree to which a rock is resistant to deformation or flow.