underqualified
adjective
underqualified is an adjective meaning “Lacking the suitable qualifications for a particular job” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled U-N-D-E-R-Q-U-A-L-I-F-I-E-D, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does underqualified mean?
adjective
- 1
Lacking the suitable qualifications for a particular job.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce underqualified?
- US
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-underqualified.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of underqualified
- more underqualified comparative
- most underqualified superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is underqualified?
Underqualified appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Underqualified in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sous-qualifié |
| German | unterqualifiziert |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does underqualified come from?
From under- + qualified.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).