incompatible

UK/ˌɪŋkəmˈpætɪbəl/US/ˌɪŋkəmˈpætɪbəl/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,301 of 15,258leans written

Incompatible means unable to work or exist together. Incompatible software, incompatible with the rules, fundamentally incompatible.

It is about the pair rather than either one — nothing is incompatible on its own, which is why the word always needs a with. In computing it means one thing will not run with another. Of blood types it is a matter of life and death. Note compatible, from the Latin for suffering together.

Definitions of incompatible

1adjectiveincompatibleUnable to work or exist together.B2+
“This charger is incompatible with the new phone, so I had to buy another one.”

incompatible is a quality of mismatch.

Where it comes from

French
incompatible
English, today
incompatible

Borrowed from French incompatible.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

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incompatible in the wild

The incompatible-properties argument is the idea that no description of God is consistent with reality.
Incompatible-properties argument
The FIPS 10-4 codes are similar to (but sometimes incompatible with) the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes.
FIPS 10-4
The standard also includes codes for the top-level subdivision of the countries, similar to but usually incompatible with the ISO 3166-2 standard.
FIPS 10-4
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers it a free software license, but one which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Common Development and Distribution License
Two groups of incompatible elements that have difficulty entering the solid phase are known by acronyms.
Incompatible element

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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