Word.ws English Dictionary

weaponized incompetence

weaponized incompetence noun: a behavioral tactic where a person intentionally pretends to be incapable or performs tasks poorly in order to avoid responsibility and shift the workload to others.

Noun

weaponized incompetence (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) A behavioral tactic where a person intentionally pretends to be incapable or performs tasks poorly in order to avoid responsibility and shift the workload to others.
    • Trace that logic out a bit, and you arrive at a kind of weaponized incompetence: Your husband isn’t good at certain tasks, so he shouldn’t have to do them. No. He should learn how to do them. Negligence as a domestic partner is unacceptable. Your exhaustion and unhappiness alone should be enough to...2018 May 8, Steve Almond, “Save Me From This Domestic Drudgery! The Sweet Spot column”, in New York Times
    • Acknowledgment of this mindset existed long before any TikTok trend. A Wall Street Journal article dating back to 2007 coined the term “strategic incompetence,” describing it as an “art” and “skill” that can be used in the office for tasks that someone doesn’t want to do. The article suggests that...2023 March 8, Jamie Murray, “Weaponized incompetence is deeper than a TikTok trend”, in Michigan Daily

Examples of weaponized incompetence in a sentence

  • Trace that logic out a bit, and you arrive at a kind of weaponized incompetence: Your husband isn’t good at certain tasks, so he shouldn’t have to do them.2018 May 8, Steve Almond, “Save Me From This Domestic Drudgery! The Sweet Spot column”, in New York Times:
  • Even though the article, in comparison to TikTok, takes a more positive view of weaponized incompetence, the fundamental premise remains.2023 March 8, Jamie Murray, “Weaponized incompetence is deeper than a TikTok trend”, in Michigan Daily:
  • Weaponized incompetence, also known as strategic incompetence, refers to the deliberate feigning of incompetence to avoid certain tasks or responsibilities.2023 September 18, Mark Travers, “2 Ways ‘Weaponized Incompetence’ Might Be Hurting Your Relationship”, in Forbes:

Forms of weaponized incompetence

alternative formweaponised incompetence

Questions about weaponized incompetence

What does weaponized incompetence mean?
Weaponized incompetence means a behavioral tactic where a person intentionally pretends to be incapable or performs tasks poorly in order to avoid responsibility and shift the workload to others.
How do you use weaponized incompetence in a sentence?
Trace that logic out a bit, and you arrive at a kind of weaponized incompetence: Your husband isn’t good at certain tasks, so he shouldn’t have to do them.
What part of speech is weaponized incompetence?
Weaponized incompetence is a noun.

Words near weaponized incompetence in the dictionary

  1. weaponizability
  2. weaponizable
  3. weaponization
  4. weaponize
  5. weaponized
  6. weaponized incompetence
  7. weaponizer
  8. weaponizers
  9. weaponizes
  10. weaponizing
  11. weaponless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: weaponized incompetence (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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