imbecile
Americannoun
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Informal. a dunce; blockhead; dolt.
Don't stand there like an imbecile. Open the door!
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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.
noun
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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
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informal an extremely stupid person; dolt
adjective
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of or like an imbecile; mentally deficient; feeble-minded
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stupid or senseless
an imbecile thing to do
Other Word Forms
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.
Vocabulary lists containing imbecile
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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.
Stupid he who gives, Imbecile he who does not take.
From Time Magazine Archive
Imbecile that I am, his honour—where is he?
From The Light of Scarthey by Castle, Egerton
Imbecile, to give bread to the rats that they might not disturb him in the night-time, instead of keeping a cat!
From A Hungarian Nabob by Bain, R. Nisbet (Robert Nisbet)
Imbecile and vicious men cannot do any of these things.
From Imaginary Conversations and Poems A Selection by Landor, Walter Savage
Imbecile beauty saw her index in the painted mirror.
From The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales by Durivage, Francis A. (Francis Alexander)
Definitions 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.
