All 4 Uses of
competent
in
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
- A classmate named Stewart Snyder, a competent bulky young man in a gray flannel shirt, a rusty black bow tie, and the green-and-purple class cap, grumbled to her as they walked behind the others in the muck of the South St. Paul stockyards, "These college chumps make me tired.†
Chpt 1competent = sufficiently capable
- Will had been lordly—stalwart, jolly, impressively competent in making camp, tender and understanding through the hours when they had lain side by side in a tent pitched among pines high up on a lonely mountain spur.†
Chpt 3
- The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick and cement buildings opposite each other.†
Chpt 4 *
- Bea was competent; there was no household labor except sewing and darning and gossipy assistance to Bea in bed-making.†
Chpt 7
Definitions:
-
(1)
(competent) capable (able to do something in a generally satisfactory manner) -- sometimes specifically to have legal capability
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
In the field of law, competent has the specialized meaning of being legally qualified to do something such as to be mentally fit to make reasonable decisions; or to have jurisdiction or authority to take an action.
In classic literature, a competency can refer to having an income or assets to support living expenses.