Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Not capable of existing in agreement or harmony with something else.
  • adjective Not capable of living or working together happily or harmoniously; antagonistic.
  • adjective Impossible to be held simultaneously by one person.
  • adjective Logic That cannot be simultaneously true; mutually exclusive.
  • adjective Producing an undesirable effect when used in combination with a particular substance.
  • adjective Not immunologically compatible.
  • noun One that is incompatible.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not compatible; incapable of harmonizing or agreeing; mutually repelling; incongruous.
  • Specifically That cannot coexist or be conjoined, as mutually repellent substances, or ingredients in a medicine which react on each other, causing precipitation or serious change of composition, or remedies which have opposite medicinal properties. Such substances are distinctively called incompatibles.
  • Persons or things that are incompatible with each other. See I., 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not compatible; so differing as to be incapable of harmonious combination or coexistence; inconsistent in thought or being; irreconcilably disagreeing
  • adjective (Chem.) Incapable of being together without mutual reaction or decomposition, as certain medicines.
  • adjective (Logic) terms which can not be combined in thought.
  • noun (Med. & Chem.) An incompatible substance; esp., in pl., things which can not be placed or used together because of a change of chemical composition or of opposing medicinal qualities.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of two things: impossible to coexist; not congruous because of differences; irreconcilable; disagreeing.
  • noun medicine, chemistry An incompatible substance; one of a group of things that cannot be placed or used together because of a change of chemical composition or opposing medicinal qualities.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective incapable of being used with or connected to other devices or components without modification
  • adjective not compatible
  • adjective not easy to combine harmoniously
  • adjective used especially of solids or solutions; incapable of blending into a stable homogeneous mixture
  • adjective not in keeping with what is correct or proper
  • adjective used especially of drugs or muscles that counteract or neutralize each other's effect
  • adjective not compatible with other facts
  • adjective not suitable to your tastes or needs
  • adjective of words so related that one contrasts with the other

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French incompatible.

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Examples

  • To say that they are incompatible is like saying that the Cosmological Fine Tuning argument is incompatible with biological ID because it only discusses the physical constants of the universe.

    Blast From the Past 2010

  • And those two may have been incompatible from the get-go and it was just a matter of time before it blew up.

    Williams Flap Ignites Controversy Over Objectivity 2010

  • The view of many other scientists that faith and science (or reason) are incompatible is ignored or disparaged.

    Advocacy in Science: a Parasitic Practice 2010

  • How do that work when those items are locked away in incompatible and proprietary data stores?

    Where data goes when it dies and other musings | FactoryCity 2009

  • And those two may have been incompatible from the get-go and it was just a matter of time before it blew up.

    Williams Flap Ignites Controversy Over Objectivity 2010

  • The view of many other scientists that faith and science (or reason) are incompatible is ignored or disparaged.

    Advocacy in Science: a Parasitic Practice 2010

  • VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Nov. 15) warned against doping in athletic competition, a practice he called incompatible with "human and Christian values."

    Pope Warns Athletes On Doping Josh Fleet 2010

  • VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Nov. 15) warned against doping in athletic competition, a practice he called incompatible with "human and Christian values."

    Pope Warns Athletes On Doping The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Nov. 15) warned against doping in athletic competition, a practice he called incompatible with "human and Christian values."

    Pope Warns Athletes On Doping The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Nov. 15) warned against doping in athletic competition, a practice he called incompatible with "human and Christian values."

    Pope Warns Athletes On Doping Josh Fleet 2010

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