imbecile

American  

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

noun

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

• imbecilely adverb
• imbecilic adjective
• imbecility noun

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

My friend Alessandro Palazzi, who's the famous bartender at Duke's in London, says, "Anybody who says they make the best martini is an imbecile because everybody's got different tastes."

From Salon • May 1, 2025

“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

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

Wider reporting of the incident has created a vague, semi-processed picture of just another footballing imbecile waving his underserved millions in the face of consumptive nurses everywhere.

From The Guardian • Jan. 12, 2019

Somewhere between camaraderie and imbecile I tap her beige bare shoulder with the note.

From "The Crossover" by Kwame Alexander