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Competency vs Incompetence - What's the difference?

competency | incompetence | Related terms |

Competency is a related term of incompetence.


As nouns the difference between competency and incompetence

is that competency is (obsolete) a sufficient supply (of) while incompetence is inability to perform; lack of competence; ineptitude.

competency

English

Noun

(competencies)
  • (obsolete) A sufficient supply (of).
  • * 1612 , John Smith, Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia , in Kupperman 1988, p. 178:
  • the next day they returned unsuspected, leaving their confederates to follow, and in the interim, to convay them a competencie of all things they could
  • * (Ambrose Bierce)
  • (obsolete) A sustainable income.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
  • * 1915 , :
  • He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it. He knew that the lack made a man petty, mean, grasping; it distorted his character and caused him to view the world from a vulgar angle; when you had to consider every penny, money became of grotesque importance: you needed a competency to rate it at its proper value.
  • The ability to perform some task; competence.
  • * Burke
  • The loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause.
  • * 2004 , Bill Clinton, My Life
  • By the year 2000, American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography....
  • (legal) Meeting specified qualifications to perform.
  • (linguistics) implicit knowledge of a languageā€™s structure.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    incompetence

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • Inability to perform; lack of competence; ineptitude.
  • * 1851:
  • ... at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck
  • * 1949:
  • Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence . Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate.
  • * 1974:
  • The factory where she worked was a poisonous mass of incompetence , favoritism, and sabotage.