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Competent vs Comprehensive - What's the difference?

competent | comprehensive |

As adjectives the difference between competent and comprehensive

is that competent is having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications while comprehensive is broadly or completely covering; including a large proportion of something.

As a noun comprehensive is

a comprehensive school.

competent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications.
    • He is a competent skier and an expert snowboarder.
  • (legal) Having jurisdiction or authority over a particular issue or question.
    • For any disagreements arising from this contract, the competent court shall be the Springfield Circuit Court.
    judicial authority having competent jurisdiction
  • Adequate for the purpose
  • * 1662 , , Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 67:
    • "For if [birds] had been Viviparous , the burthen of their womb, if they had brought forth any competent number at a time, had been so big and heavy, that their wings would have failed them "

    Quotations

    * "I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter." - James Joyce, Ulysses , 1922 * "That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void." - James Joyce, Ulysses , 1922

    Related terms

    * competence * compete * competition * competentness

    comprehensive

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Broadly]] or completely covering; [[include, including a large proportion of something.

    • Synonyms

    * (broadly or completely covering) exhaustive, thorough, all-encompassing

    Derived terms

    * comprehensively * comprehensivization * comprehensivize

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (British) A comprehensive school.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)
    • , volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.}} ----