incompetent person
- noun
- /ˌɪnkəmˈpɛtənt ˈpɜrsən/
- Hospitals fail to meet the principle of nonmaleficence when inadequate personnel policies allow poorly trained or otherwise incompetent persons to be hired and patients to be put at risk.
He has taken our country, wadded it up, spit on it, thrown it to the most incompetent people you could ever imagine.
- He has taken our country, wadded it up, spit on it, thrown it to the most incompetent people you could ever imagine.
- She pretty much turned his free will off and turned him into a morally incompetent person.
Examples
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I doubt that any of us hate the prez; we just don't like having an incompetent person in the White House.
Blog text (28) -
A conservator generally is an individual appointed by the court to oversee property decisions for an incompetent person.
Academic text (1999) -
We did not realize what an incompetent person he would be as president.
Blog text (32) -
Spanish politicians are such incompetent people.
Blog text (3) -
You got to protect people from incompetent people doing stuff that's difficult.
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He picked a totally incompetent person to be his VP running mate.
Blog text (16) -
In Belchertown v. Saikewicz, the court held that the right to refuse medical treatment... ...in appropriate circumstances extends to both competent and incompetent persons.
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The purpose of this website is to allow translation buyers to search the blacklist database before hiring a translator, in order to avoid hiring incompetent people.
Blog text (32) -
It's frustrating to work with an incompetent person who doesn't understand the basics of the job.
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Hiring an incompetent person can lead to serious problems in any project.
Synonyms
A person who behaves in a silly or careless way
A person who does a job very badly
A person in a position of power who has no real skills
A person who often fails to do things well
A person who is not able to do a job or task well
A person who has not learned the skills needed for a job
How Competent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person who lacks the necessary ability or skill' is directly and compositionally derived from combining the adjective 'incompetent' with the noun 'person'. This is a standard adjective + noun construction that is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
Incompetent person comes from the parts incompetent, literally 'not competent', and person, creating a clear image of someone who cannot do a job well. So, it is used to describe someone 'lacking the ability or skill' to perform a task.