incompetence
nounEtymology From French incompétence, equivalent to in- + competence.
1
Usually 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:
1 more example
- The factory where she worked was a poisonous mass of incompetence, favoritism, and sabotage.1974, Ursula Leguin, The Dispossessed:
- Derived terms
- artificial incompetence, immunoincompetence, weaponized incompetence
- Related terms
- competency, incompetency, incompetent