imbecile

American  

[im-buh-sil, -suhl, -seel] / ˈɪm bə sɪl, -səl, -ˌsil /

noun

• imbeciles
  plural

1. Informal. a dunce; blockhead; dolt.

   Don't stand there like an imbecile. Open the door!

2. Psychology. (no longer in technical use; now considered offensive) a person of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, above the level of idiocy, having a mental age of seven or eight years and an intelligence quotient of 25 to 50.

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adjective

1. Informal. stupid; silly; absurd.

2. Usually Offensive. showing mental feebleness or incapacity.

3. Archaic. weak or feeble.

imbecile British  

noun

1. psychol a person of very low intelligence (IQ of 25 to 50), usually capable only of guarding himself against danger and of performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision

2. informal an extremely stupid person; dolt

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adjective

1. of or like an imbecile; mentally deficient; feeble-minded

2. stupid or senseless

   an imbecile thing to do

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• imbecility
  noun
• imbecilic
  adjective
• imbecilely
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• imbeciles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of imbecile

First recorded in 1540–50; earlier imbecill, from Latin imbēcillus “weak”; -ile replacing -ill by confusion with suffix -ile

Explanation

If your best friend calls you an imbecile, he's implying that you're stupid, and he's probably pretty angry with you. An imbecile is an extremely stupid person. The noun imbecile is used informally as an insult to mean "fool". Its origins are in the Latin word imbecille, "weak or feeble," and it was an official medical term for people with a specific (and low) I.Q. in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Patients who were classified as imbeciles were said to have no more intelligence than a seven year-old child.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

imbecile imbeciles

But I will say you know, the Beatles wrote "Helter Skelter" and it's not their fault that some imbecile used it incorrectly.

From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2022

“That was the message that the universe was shouting at us loud and clear. And it would’ve taken an imbecile to ignore that market message,” Needham said.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 2, 2021

"It took me three hours to get to where I am this morning, because the Mayor of London is an imbecile," he says with his usual tact.

From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2020

But he went on to add, “John Dingell was not exactly a wallflower. John Dingell called the president an imbecile in his closing months.”

From Washington Times ● Dec. 22, 2019

It was so simple, I felt like an imbecile for not seeing it sooner.

From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson

In an instant, in the eyes of some classmates and rivals alike, they went from promising freshmen to everlasting imbeciles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2020

If I can’t convince these imbeciles of anything, I can at least annoy them, and I think I do a reasonably good job of that.”

From Washington Post ● Nov. 25, 2019

Organisers are hoping to encourage the largest gathering of people dressed as Gumbys - the spectacle-wearing, knotted handkerchief-sporting imbeciles who became part of Python lore.

From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2019

Last Thursday, Shkreli invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on drug pricing, and later tweeted that lawmakers in Congress were imbeciles.

From Reuters ● Feb. 9, 2016

They were imbeciles, as well as being the Sassenach, and she herself was a saint She was, she discovered with a change of posture, interested in nothing but her darling boys.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White