UNQUALIFIED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unqualified mean? 

• UNQUALIFIED (adjective)
  The adjective UNQUALIFIED has 4 senses:

1. not limited or restricted

2. not meeting the proper standards and requirements and training

3. legally not qualified or sufficient

4. having no right or entitlement

  Familiarity information: UNQUALIFIED used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNQUALIFIED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not limited or restricted

Context example:

an unqualified denial

Similar:

categoric; categorical; flat; unconditional (not modified or restricted by reservations)

clean; clear (free of restrictions or qualifications)

cool (used of a quantity or amount (especially of money) for emphasis)

outright; straight-out; unlimited (without reservation or exception)

Also:

unconditional; unconditioned (not conditional)

unmodified (not changed in form or character)

Antonym:

qualified (limited or restricted; not absolute)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not meeting the proper standards and requirements and training

Similar:

quack (medically unqualified)

Also:

incompetent (not qualified or suited for a purpose)

ineligible (not eligible)

Antonym:

qualified (meeting the proper standards and requirements and training for an office or position or task)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Legally not qualified or sufficient

Synonyms:

incompetent; unqualified

Context example:

incompetent witnesses

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Having no right or entitlement

Synonyms:

unentitled; unqualified

Context example:

a distinction to which he was unentitled

Similar:

ineligible (not eligible)

 Context examples 

“You are a very remarkable man, Dick!” said my aunt, with an air of unqualified approbation; “and never pretend to be anything else, for I know better!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This appearance excited our unqualified wonder.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I had been hitherto, all my life, a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The researchers speculate that because companion animals offer unqualified acceptance, their presence makes the children feel more secure.

(Animals’ presence may ease social anxiety in kids with autism, NIH)

He was not intending, however, by such action, to be conveying to her that unqualified approbation and encouragement which her hopes drew from it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

This was unqualified defiance.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mrs Smith had been carried away from her first direction, and Anne had forgotten, in the interest of her own family concerns, how much had been originally implied against him; but her attention was now called to the explanation of those first hints, and she listened to a recital which, if it did not perfectly justify the unqualified bitterness of Mrs Smith, proved him to have been very unfeeling in his conduct towards her; very deficient both in justice and compassion.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Harriet was a little distressed—did look a little foolish at first: but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend's approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Though the 6th Edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual indicates that unspecified TNM staging descriptors may be considered synonymous with the corresponding fully specified clinical category, such omission may lead to ambiguity in meaning, and in practice unqualified descriptors are frequently used with other intended meanings.

(Generic TNM Finding, NCI Thesaurus)