competency

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]
   • What professional competencies do science teachers need?1961, National Council for Elementary Science (U.S.), Science Education
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
   • […] it would appear that before taking this precaution Mr. Bree must have had the thrift to remove a modest competency of the gold […]1892, Ambrose Bierce, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians - A Holy Terror
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]...
   • And that knights competency you haue gotten / VVith care and labour: he vvith luſt and idleneſſe / VVill bring into the ſtypend of a begger; […]1604 (first performance), George Chapman, Al Fooles: A Comedy, […], London: […] [George Eld] for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, Act I