incomplete
Americanadjective
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not complete; lacking some part.
- Synonyms:
- fragmentary, partial, unfinished
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Football. (of a forward pass) not completed; not caught by a receiver.
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Engineering. noting a truss the panel points of which are not entirely connected so as to form a system of triangles.
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Logic, Philosophy.
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(of an expression or symbol) meaningful only in a specific context.
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(of a set of axioms) such that there is at least one true proposition (able to be formulated in terms of the basic ideas of a given system) that is not deducible from the set.
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noun
adjective
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not complete or finished
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not completely developed; imperfect
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logic
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(of a formal theory) not so constructed that the addition of a non-theorem to the axioms renders it inconsistent
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(of an expression) not having a reference of its own but requiring completion by another expression
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Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of incomplete
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Late Latin word incomplētus. See in- 3, complete
Explanation
Something incomplete is missing a part or unfinished. Incomplete things are not whole. A football pass that falls short is incomplete and so is an outfit without a shirt. A bridge to nowhere? Incomplete. Incomplete describes things that are missing something. A chess set with a lost piece is incomplete. Incomplete also means “unfinished,” like that incomplete bridge to nowhere. People often feel their lives are incomplete until they do something like have a family or make a certain amount of money. You might get an incomplete grade for a class if your teacher is going to let you make up work you missed. When something's incomplete, part of that thing is missing or undone
Vocabulary lists containing incomplete
Set, Hut! Football Vocabulary
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: in-, im-, il-, ir-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Instead, they wound up losing when their pass attempt fell incomplete.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
She said she felt pressured into agreeing to having her roof re-done and paid a total of £5,500, only for the original contractor to send his son instead, who left work in the eaves incomplete.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Checking daily moves in your accounts gives you an inaccurate or, at the very least, incomplete outlook about the stock market’s overall health.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
But Nacua’s penalty for an illegal block stymied the possession, and Stafford’s fourth-down pass for tight end Tyler Higbee fell incomplete.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
And she’d say, “Please stick to the prompts or I will have to give you an incomplete grade.”
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
