incompetent, a. (n.)
(ɪnˈkɒmpɪtənt)
[a. F. incompétent, ad. late L. incompetent-em, f. in- (in-3) + competent-em competent.]
A. adj. Not competent.
† 1. Insufficient, inadequate. Obs.
| 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Rose, Chapeau, ou chapel de roses, a small, sleight, incompetent, or lesse-then-due portion giuen a maid to her mariage. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. 256 An incompetent Cause for the Formation of a World. 1789 A. Hamilton Wks. (1886) VII. 25 The situations..were yet incompetent to the full display of those..endowments with which nature..decorates a favorite. 1823 Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Tombs in Abbey, A purse incompetent to this demand. |
2. a. Of inadequate ability or fitness; not having the requisite capacity or qualification; incapable. Const. to, to do something. Rarely of things.
| a 1635 Naunton Fragm. Reg. (Arb.) 39 Sir Francis Knowls was somewhat of the Queens affinity, and had likewise no incompetent Issue. 1647 Clarendon Hist. Reb. i. §3, I may not be thought altogether an incompetent person, having been present as a Member of Parliament in Councils. 1693 N. Mather Pref. Owen's Holy Spirit 3 It is not for so incompetent a person to say as writes this. 1800 Coleridge in C. K. Paul W. Godwin (1876) II. 13, I would gladly write any verses; but to a prologue or epilogue I am utterly incompetent. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India II. v. viii. 678 The Nabob, who was totally incompetent to his own defence. 1842 Tennyson Two Voices 375 Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory. 1869 Tyndall Notes Lect. Light 41 A body placed in a light which it is incompetent to transmit appears black. 1880 L. Stephen Pope v. 131 He was no philosopher, and therefore an incompetent assailant of the abuses of philosophy. |
b. Med. Unable to function correctly: used esp. of a valve or sphincter. (Cf. incompetence 2 b.)
| 1863 W. Braithwaite in Retrospect Med. XLVII. 69 If..the aortic valvular segments are rendered incompetent, we have the aortic regurgitant current. 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 84 The mitral valves were puckered and incompetent. 1939 Dible & Davie Path. xxxii. 537 The aortic valves are incompetent and allow a certain quantity of blood to flow back into the left ventricle during diastole. 1950 Amer. Jrnl. Obstetr. & Gynecol. LIX. 69 An abortion due to an incompetent internal os. 1971 Amer. Jrnl. Digestive Dis. XVI. 307 Eight patients had free gastroesophageal relux through a weak, incompetent sphincter. 1971 Amer. Jrnl. Dis. Children CXXI. 481/2 The immunologic system may be incompetent or contribute to the etiology of the disease. |
3. Not legally competent or qualified.
| 1597 Daniel Civ. Wars iii. (R.), Subjects..judges incompetent To judge their king. 1650 Hobbes Answ. Davenant's Pref. Gondibert Wks. 1840 IV. 443, I lie open to two exceptions, one of an incompetent, the other of a corrupted witness. 1736 Butler Anal. ii. iii. Wks. 1874 I. 187 The objections of an incompetent judgment. 1880 Muirhead Gaius iv. §107 Further action..is ipso iure incompetent. |
4. Logically inadmissible or illegitimate.
| 1835 Sir W. Hamilton Discuss., Deaf & Dumb (1852) 135 Dr. Whately's definition, is therefore, not only incompetent, but delusive. 1837–8 ― Logic xvii. (1866) I. 320 This process is wholly incompetent to the logician. |
5. Geol. Of rock or a stratum: apt to flow or to be crushed when laterally compressed; incapable of forming a simple fold and supporting any overlying strata without being distorted by plastic flow. Also applied to structures and processes dominated by such strata.
| 1891–92 B. Willis in Ann. Rep. U.S. Geol. Survey (1893) XIII. ii. 250 If the thrust be not powerful enough to raise the load there will be no uplift; or if the layers be so plastic that they yield to the thrust by swelling, then the principal result of deformation is change of form other than by simple flexure, and it assumes some phase of flowing. This is incompetent structure. 1923 Jrnl. Geol. XXXI. 506 Several attempts were made to reproduce the overfolds..of the Alps by applying rotational stresses to models in which competent layers were placed between incompetent layers. 1949 C. M. Nevin Princ. Struct. Geol. (ed. 4) iii. 54 Folding has been divided into two groups: competent folding, where the dominantly horizontal pressures are transmitted by the competent beds acting as a strut; and incompetent folding where the forces are mostly vertical and the incompetent beds react passively. Ibid. 55 Immediately beneath the arch formed by a folded relatively competent bed a formation as incompetent as shale may rise as a broad simple arch, even at a considerable depth. 1967 A. I. Levorsen Geol. Petroleum (ed. 2) viii. 358 In these cases the salt mass acts as an incompetent formation, rising as a result of the deformation of the enclosing rocks. Ibid. 378 Folds in the relatively incompetent salt. |
B. n. An incompetent person.
| 1866 Alger Solit. Nat. & Man iv. 248 These jealous incompetents had..hurled him down into a muddy pit of error. 1882 Stevenson New Arab. Nts. (1884) 324 A dauber, an incompetent, not fit to be a sign-painter. |
Hence inˈcompetentness, incompetence (Bailey vol. II, 1727).