Inadequate

//ɪnˈædəkwɪt// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who is inadequate.

    "Thus, at some critical level of unemployment, “the unemployed” becomes a negative reference group of inadequates, the hardcore unemployed […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not adequate; lacking in quality or quantity required; insufficient for a purpose.

    "inadequate resources"

Adjective
  1. 1
    lacking the requisite qualities or resources to meet a task wordnet
  2. 2
    of insufficient quantity to meet a need wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
defectivedeficientincompetentinsufficientunequal todeficient

Example

More examples

"The road is inadequate for the amount of traffic which it carries."

Etymology

From in- + adequate.

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