All 3 Uses of
competent
in
Turtles All the Way Down
- My grades were good, and I was a competent standardized test taker.
p. 138.3 *competent = sufficiently capable
- She interrupted Chewie and Rey while they were making out on board the Millennium Falcon with an annoying question about the hyperdrive "that a reasonably competent five-year-old could've figured out."
p. 195.2competent = capable
- Thanks, Russell Pickett, for your corruption and incompetence.
p. 266.6incompetence = lack of ability to do things sufficientlystandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetence means not and reverses the meaning of competence. 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.