Incompetence

How to spell incompetence

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce incompetence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does incompetence mean?

1. nounThe inability to do a job or task properly; a lack of the necessary skill or competence.

Incompetence in a sentence

• The report blamed the project delays on management incompetence.

• Repeated incompetence on the production line led to a costly recall.

Where does incompetence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb competere, which combined the prefix com-, meaning 'together', with petere, meaning 'to seek' or 'to strive'. Originally competere carried the sense of two things striving toward the same point, that is, being suitable or sufficient for a task. From this grew the noun competentia, the quality of being adequate or fit. English took the positive form 'competence' in the 1500s, and the negative was built by adding the Latin prefix in-, meaning 'not', so 'incompetence' literally describes a failure to be fit or sufficient for the job. The same petere root still underlies a whole family of English words, including 'petition', 'appetite' and 'compete', all of which involve seeking or striving in some way. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: the schwa-sounding 'pet' and the soft '-ence' ending are easy to garble, and writers sometimes wrongly reach for '-ance'.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• com- (together)
• pet (from Latin petere: to seek, strive)
• -ence (noun-forming suffix)