Definition of "competent" []

• Properly or sufficiently qualified; capable: a competent typist. (adjective)
• Adequate for the purpose: a competent performance. (adjective)
• Law Legally qualified or fit to perform an act. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "(which nobody denies actually to subsist,) and after stating, that, if juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of trial by jury will be of none or imperfect effect, it enacts, not that the jury _shall_ have the _power_, but that they shall be _held and reputed in law and right competent_ to try the whole matter laid in the information."
• "Devaud said that a Pakistani government anti-corruption agency had posted on its Web site what he described as competent English-language translations of the original orders he had issued against Bhutto, Zardari and Schlegelmilch in 2003."
• "We have constant, what we call competent air patrol or CAP over New York and over Washington."