unskillfulness

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of expertise

Nouns

1. unskillfulness, incompetence; inability, inexperience; quackery, maladroitness, ineptness, clumsiness, awkwardness, two left feet, black thumb.

2. mismanagement, misconduct; maladministration; misrule, misgovernment, misapplication, misdirection, misfeasance.

3. bungling, failure; too many cooks, blunder, mistake, error; gaucherie, act of folly, botch[ery]; bad job. Slang, snafu.

4. blunderer, bumbler, botcher, butcher, bungler, fumbler, duffer, klutz, country cousin; bull in a china shop; butterfingers; greenhorn, palooka; Mrs. Malaprop, sorcerer's apprentice. Slang, oaf, goofus, lobster, reject, schlemiel, schlub, cheechaks, clyde, galumph, lightfoot, gimp, gink, hacker, palooka, schmendrick, waldo.

Verbs

1. blunder, bungle, boggle, fumble, botch, flounder, stumble, trip, hobble; tinker, make a mess or hash of, play havoc with; make a fool of oneself; play the fool; lose one's head. Informal, put one's foot in it; foul up, be all thumbs. Slang, mess, ball, hash, or louse up, snafu.

2. err, make a mistake (see error); mismanage, misconduct, misdirect, misapply, make heavy weather of; do things by halves; work at cross purposes; put the cart before the horse; not know what one is about; not know a hawk from a handsaw; kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; cut one's own throat, burn one's fingers; run one's head against a stone wall; fall into a trap, catch a Tartar, bring down the house about one's ears; too many irons in the fire.

Adjectives

1. unskillful, unskilled, inexpert, bungling, awkward, ungainly, clumsy, lubberly, gangling, gauche, maladroit; left-handed, heavy-handed, heavy-footed; inapt, unapt, inept; neglectful; all thumbs; stupid, incompetent; unqualified, ill-qualified; unfit; quackish; raw, green, inexperienced; amateur, jackleg; half-baked.

2. unaccustomed, rusty, out of practice, unused, untrained, uninitiated, unconversant, ignorant (see ignorance); unadvised, ill-advised, misguided. Informal, wet behind the ears.

Quotations — In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence (Laurence J. Peter), Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few (G. B. Shaw).

Antonyms, see skill.