inept

Definition

Not able to do something; not proficient; displaying incompetence.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French inepte, from Latin ineptus, from in- + aptus (whence English apt).

Example Sentences

• "As a waiter, he was inept, so they put him in the kitchen."
• "The bungled phrase, the slipshod paragraph, the inept metaphor, the irrelevant excursion, the disproportionate development, the feeble conclusion, are indeed all failures of meaning, and the more poetically ambitious the verbal structure in which they occur, the deeper and more substantive the failure may be."