inadequate

1. 1.

   lacking the requisite qualities or resources to meet a task

   “inadequate training”

   “the staff was inadequate”

   “she was unequal to the task”

   Synonymsunequal

   Antonymsadequate

   Similardeficientincapableshort-handed
2. 2.

   of insufficient quantity to meet a need

   “an inadequate income”

   “a poor salary”

   “money is short”

   “on short rations”

   “food is in short supply”

   “short on experience”

   “the jejune diets of the very poor”

   Synonymspoorshortjejune

   Similarinsufficient

Questions about inadequate

What does inadequate mean?

inadequate means "lacking the requisite qualities or resources to meet a task". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in inadequate?

inadequate has 4 syllables: in-ad-eq-uate. The stress falls on "ad". In IPA it is /ˌɪˈnædəkwət/.

What is another word for inadequate?

Close synonyms include unequal, poor, short, jejune. 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 inadequate?

The recorded antonyms are adequate.

Is inadequate a common word?

inadequate is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.