All 3 Uses of
competent
in
Nineteen Minutes
- It had started innocently enough-Logan Rourke, her trial advocacy professor, calling her into his office to tell her that she commanded the courtroom with competence; Logan saying that no juror would be able to take his eyes off her-and that neither could he.†
Chpt 1competence = ability
- She had tried to hide the discomfort behind the mask of competence that she usually wore, only to realize that in her hurry, she must have left it behind somewhere.†
Chpt 1 *
- She felt incompetent-and then she'd remember that this wasn't about her, it was about Josie-and she'd feel even more like a failure.†
Chpt 1incompetent = not sufficiently capablestandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetent means not and reverses the meaning of competent. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
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.