Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use incompetent in a sentence

32 example sentences · adjective, noun

Incompetent means lacking the degree of ability and responsibility necessary to do a task successfully. Example: “Having an incompetent lawyer may be grounds for a retrial, but the lawyer in question probably doesn't know that.”

Examples of incompetent by meaning

adjectiveLacking the degree of ability and responsibility necessary to do a task successfully.

  • Having an incompetent lawyer may be grounds for a retrial, but the lawyer in question probably doesn't know that.
  • Many Gazans scorn Fatah as corrupt and incompetent, and they dislike Hamas's overzealousness and repression.2009 January 8, Nicholas D. Kristof, “The Gaza Boomerang”, in The New York Times

adjectiveUnable to make rational decisions; insane or otherwise cognitively impaired.

  • The charged was judged incompetent to stand trial, at least until his medication started working.

nounA person who is incompetent.

  • But besides these incompetents, there was always a train of camp followers, —women who followed the camp, beggars, and criminals, whose number was often greater than the number of fighting soldiers.1915, Henry Smith Williams, Edward Huntington Williams, Modern Warfare, page 11
  • "I wouldn't trust those fumble-fingered incompetents to shoe a horse."2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 34

More sentences with incompetent

  • His secretaryship was marred by accusations of corruption, but the next secretary of state was called incompetent.From the entry secretaryship
  • I’ve never met someone so incompetent. He’s only fit for the knacker’s yard.From the entry knacker's yard
  • The angry captain typified all new sailors as incompetent.From the entry typify
  • The Brits have been uniquely incompetent in wallowing in narcissistic irrelevance ever since the Brexit vote.2023 November 23, Peter Zeihan, “Ireland Needs a New Game Plan || Peter Zeihan”, in Zeihan on Geopolitics, sourced from YouTube, 2:55–3:14. From the entry NAFTA
  • Anand, I will unspin the incompetent spin by the verifiable mediocre and dishonest council.2015, Abiodun Olayinka Bamgbelu, Mediocre Great England, page 572. From the entry unspin
  • An mTOR inhibitor could not chemosensitize apoptosis incompetent esophageal cancer cells, whereas lithium could.2015 August 6, Tracey R. O’Donovan et al., “Lithium Modulates Autophagy in Esophageal and Colorectal Cancer Cells and Enhances the…. From the entry chemosensitize
  • We may think that the Dunning Kruger bias could not possibly apply to us because we can't really be hopelessly incompetent.2020 May 24, Phillip T. Erickson, Cognitive Behavior: This Book Includes: Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Mental Models, Critical Thinking…. From the entry Dunning-Kruger bias
  • How could my staff be so incompetent?!2019 October 31, Next Level Games, Luigi's Mansion 3, v1.4.0, Nintendo, level/area: Lounge (15F: Master Suite). From the entry tch
  • If any host nation has ever earned a handful of incompetent decisions from nervous and flag-happy officials, it was this one.2013, Nick Hornby, Fan Mail: Twenty Years of Writing about Football. From the entry flag-happy
  • It makes men lazy, it makes them incompetent.1994, Louis De Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. From the entry unsuit
  • The women had stuck to their busutis, billowing, clumsy dresses introduced by nineteenth-century priggish missionaries who were absolutely incompetent dress makers.1982, Feli Okoboi, The Eternal Problem, page 39. From the entry busuti
  • Trump as an imperialist out for blood or as an incompetent lackey of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, often stoking antisemitic tropes.2026 April 25, Steven Lee Myers, Stuart A. Thompson, “Iran’s Meme War Against Trump Ushers In a Future of ‘Slopaganda’”, in The New York…. From the entry out for blood
  • If it was a dark, South Park-ian lampoon of social propaganda, it didn’t work due to the misjudged style choice and incompetent animation.2023, Ben Mitchell, Independent Animation: Developing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films, 2nd edition, CRC Press, →ISBN. From the entry South Park-ian
  • Nevertheless Armenian leaders at first retained faith in the reform agenda of the Porte, ascribing their ills to incompetent officialdom and Kurdish lawlessness.2005, Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, archived from the original on 10 Apr 2023…. From the entry Armenian
  • Non-Uniform Probate Code state law may vary with respect to the ability to disclaim on behalf of an incompetent or postdeceased beneficiary.2000, Estate Planning. From the entry postdecease
  • It gave her the illusion that Ted Farrell was a masterful dominant and that she was being exposed to him as an incompetent noodle.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 170. From the entry enfeebling
  • Miller, a frail but clever champion, spent most of the night warding off the wild rushes of the game but incompetent Worcesterite.1935 October 23, Hy Hurtwitz, “Miller Outclasses Cormier at Garden”, in The Boston Globe, page 22. From the entry Worcesterite
  • We were incompetent to map the country we passed through, to chart the waters, to geologise, botanise, zoologise, astronomise, or to any other ise.1906, James Barr, Laughing through a wilderness, page 261. From the entry botanise
  • He probably found a quiet satisfaction in the fact that his successor at the courthouse proved incompetent and lasted not over a year.1903 July 18, “Landmark at Courthouse Gone”, in Wisconsin State Journal, last edition, volume 101, number 93, Madison, Wis., →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry kennelry
  • Then we have the Idiotorial Necromancer and Presto High-Diver, who writes learnedly of that which he does not comprehend and which he is incompetent to analyze.2018, Joesph Ovette, Advanced Magic, page 37. From the entry idiotorial
  • The logic of the Audit is fiducially incompetent and wrong, and following it will lead to steadily increasing catastrophic forest fire acreage and exponentially greater cost-plus-losses in the future.2007, Mike Dubrasich, “Statement of Michael E. Dubrasich, Lebanon”, in Costs of wildfire suppression :Congressional Hearing, page 79. From the entry fiducially
  • Still, rockfests persist as a decent way to raise a buck, if you're not incompetent or scheisty, and Yauch's nonprofit group, the Milarepa Fund, is neither.1997 September, SPIN, volume 13, number 6, page 67. From the entry rockfest
  • The proper application of adult protection statutes to incompetent people will often be as dependent on thorough, fair, complete competency assessment as the imposition of guardianship is.1994, Michel Silberfeld, Arthur Fish, When the Mind Fails: A Guide to Dealing with Incompetency, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page…. From the entry adult protection
  • Incompetent deep veins lead to a reflux of blood pedally with the resultant dilation of distal veins, which itself causes valvular incompetence, setting up a vicious cycle.1989, Richard D. Liechty, Robert T. Soper, Fundamentals of surgery, page 312. From the entry pedally
  • To accomplish this end, each of the three components contains two levels: verbal caring and uncaring, nonverbal caring and uncaring, and technically competent and incompetent behavior.1988, Madeleine M. Leininger, Care, Discovery and Uses in Clinical and Community Nursing. From the entry uncaring
  • These problems are nothing more nor less than how to keep down the subject class and make it believe itself incompetent to assume control and make itself happy.1908, Marcus Hitch, “Comments”, in Goethe’s Faust: A Fragment of Socialist Criticism, Chicago, Ill.: Charles H[ope] Kerr & Company, page 74. From the entry tremendosity
  • Three employees of China National Erzhong Group Co. in the southwestern city of Deyang said workers started taking to the streets Monday with banners protesting against corrupt and incompetent managers.2015 May 13, Didi Tang, “Chinese workers at state-owned machinery plant protest”, in AP News, archived from the original on 08 Jun 2022. From the entry Deyang

Meaning of incompetent

  1. adjective Lacking the degree of ability and responsibility necessary to do a task successfully.
  2. adjective Unable to make rational decisions; insane or otherwise cognitively impaired.
  3. adjective Opening too early during pregnancy, resulting in miscarriage or premature birth.

Full definition of incompetent

Questions about incompetent in a sentence

How do you use incompetent in a sentence?
Incompetent is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Having an incompetent lawyer may be grounds for a retrial, but the lawyer in question probably doesn't know that.”
What is a short sentence with incompetent?
“How could my staff be so incompetent?!”
What does incompetent mean?
Incompetent means lacking the degree of ability and responsibility necessary to do a task successfully.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: incompetent (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use incompetent in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/incompetent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.