competence

Other forms of competence

plural

competences·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about competence

What does competence mean?

competence means "the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually".

How many syllables are in competence?

competence has 3 syllables: com-pe-tence. The stress falls on "com". In IPA it is /ˈkɑmpətɪns/.

What is another word for competence?

Close synonyms include competency. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of competence?

The recorded antonyms are incompetence.

Is competence a common word?

competence is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.