Quotes: Competence, Incompetence

1. The quality of being competent; adequacy; possession of required skill, knowledge, qualification, or capacity: "He hired her because of her competence as a secretary."
2. The state or quality of being adequately or well qualified; having the ability to achieve tasks or assignments successfully.
3. A specific range of skill, knowledge, or ability.

1. The lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications to succeed with a project.
2. The quality or situation in which a person is lacking a qualification or an ability to do something; incapable; inadequate for or unsuited for a particular purpose or application.
3. Etymology: from French incompétence, from in-, "not, opposite of, without" + compétence, from competens, competere, "to strive in common"; in classical Latin "to come together, to agree, to be qualified"; later it came to mean, "strive together"; from com-, "together" + petere, "to strive, to seek, to fall upon, to rush at, to attack".