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imbecile. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
imbecile, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
imbecile in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
imbecile you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle French imbécile, from Latin imbēcillus (“weak, feeble”), literally “without a staff”.
Pronunciation
Noun
imbecile (plural imbeciles)
- (obsolete) A person with limited mental capacity who can perform tasks and think only like a young child, in medical circles meaning a person who lacks the capacity to develop beyond the mental age of a normal five- to seven-year-old child.
1956, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 7”, in Sexual Offences Act 1956, page 2:It is an offence for a man to have unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman whom he knows to be an idiot or imbecile.
- (derogatory) A fool, an idiot.
2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:“A rat picked up a drink can and threw it at me?” yelled Mr Big.
“A big rat, guv’nor? One of them super-rats?” suggested Thumbs.
“It landed on my head, you imbecile!”
Usage notes
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
person with limited mental capacity
fool
- Catalan: imbècil (ca) m or f
- Danish: tåbe c, fjols n, idiot (da) c, kraftidiot c, dumrian c, fæ (da) c, imbecil
- Dutch: imbeciel (nl) m
- Faroese: býttlingur m
- Finnish: imbesilli (fi)
- French: imbécile (fr) m or f
- German: Idiot (de) m, Dummkopf (de)
- Greek: ηλίθιος (el) m (ilíthios), βλάκας (el) m (vlákas), ανόητος (el) m (anóitos)
- Indonesian: bodoh (id), bego (id), tolol (id)
- Japanese: ばか (ja) (baka)
- Khmer: អាភ្លើ (aa pləə)
- Latvian: imbecils, stulbs, muļķis (lv) m, muļķe f
- Luxembourgish: Dräibiz (lb) m
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: imbesil m
- Polish: imbecyl (pl) m
- Portuguese: imbecil (pt) m or f
- Russian: дура́к (ru) m (durák), ду́ра (ru) f (dúra)
- Slovak: please add this translation if you can
- Spanish: imbécil (es)
- Tagalog: tulala
- Turkish: embesil (tr), budala (tr), ahmak (tr), aptal (tr)
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Adjective
imbecile (comparative more imbecile, superlative most imbecile)
- (dated) Destitute of strength, whether of body or mind; feeble; impotent; especially, mentally weak.
- hospitals for the imbecile and insane
1899 April, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MII, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part III (Conclusion), page 647:And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke.