incompetence
/ɪnˈkɒm.pə.təns/
incompetence noun: an inability to perform; a lack of competence; ineptitude.
Noun
incompetence (usually uncountable, plural incompetences)
- An inability to perform; a lack of competence; ineptitude.
- ... at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
- Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate.1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001
incompetence meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
incompetence in Tamil
- தகுதியின்மை, திறனின்மை, திறமையின்மை, இதயத் தடுக்கிதழ்கள் செயலிழப்பு, இயலாமை, உடல் இயலாமை உள இயலாமை
incompetence in Urdu
- نااہلیت
incompetence in Bengali
- incompetence, inefficiency, inability
- অকর্মণ্যতা ôkôrmônnôta
incompetence in Telugu
- inability to perform
- అసమర్థత asamarthata
More languagesFewer languages
- incompetence in Kannada
- ಅಸಾಮರ್ಥ್ಯ, ಅದಕ್ಷತೆ
- incompetence in Sanskrit
- अक्षमा akṣamā
- incompetence in Persian
- بیعرضگی bi-o'rzegi
Examples of incompetence in a sentence
- Thanks to various kinds of endemic incompetence, humans show no prospect of ending all wars.
- The usual managerial incompetence was in evidence in yesterday's meeting.
- It wasn't quite his incompetence as his being an AItheist that caused Chinmay to lose out on that promotion.
Forms of incompetence
| plural | incompetences |
|---|
Origin of incompetence
From French incompétence, equivalent to in- + competence.
Words formed from incompetence
Phrases with incompetence
Questions about incompetence
- What does incompetence mean?
- Incompetence means an inability to perform; a lack of competence; ineptitude.
- What is incompetence in Tamil?
- Incompetence in Tamil is தகுதியின்மை, திறனின்மை, திறமையின்மை. See Incompetence meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is incompetence?
- Incompetence is a noun.
- How do you pronounce incompetence?
- Incompetence is pronounced /ɪnˈkɒm.pə.təns/.
- What is the plural of incompetence?
- The plural of incompetence is incompetences.
Words near incompetence in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: incompetence (page history and authors); incompetence (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); incompetence (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অকর্মণ্যতা (Bengali) (page history and authors); incompetence (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-incompetence.wav.
Cite this entry: “incompetence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/incompetence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.