competencies

Noun

competency (countable and uncountable, plural competencies)

1. The ability to perform some task; competence.
   • The loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause.1795–1797, Edmund Burke, “(please specify |letter=1 to 4)”, in [Letters on a Regicide Peace], London: [Rivington]
2. An individual's capacity to understand the nature and implications of their legal rights and obligations.
3. Implicit knowledge of a language’s structure.
4. (obsolete) A sufficient supply of something.
   • the next day they returned unsuspected, leaving their confederates to follow, and in the interim, to convay them a competencie of all things they could […]1612, John Smith, Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, Kupperman, published 1988, page 178
5. (obsolete) A sustainable income.
   • Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...