Ill-equipped

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not well equipped; lacking important resources and supplies.

    "King Vajiralongkorn has stacked his privy council with generals plucked straight from the junta's cabinet; the junta has looked to the palace to help adjudicate in a long-running and volatile dispute over who should fill a vacant post at the head of Thai Buddhism, which the military government had appeared ill-equipped to handle alone."

  2. 2
    Mentally unprepared for a situation or task.
Adjective
  1. 1
    poorly supplied with physical equipment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bare handedbare-handedbeggarlydisqualifiedempty handedempty-handed

Example

More examples

"As too often, those trumpeting the benefits of globalization have ignored inequality within and among nations; have ignored the enduring appeal of ethnic and sectarian identities; have left international institutions ill-equipped, underfunded, under-resourced, in order to handle transnational challenges."

Etymology

From ill (adverb) + equipped.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.