IMBECILE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Imbecile

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/ˈɪmbəsəl/ /ˈɪmbəsaɪl/ Listen

noun

Imbecile n.

One destitute of strength; esp., one of feeble mind; sometimes used as a pejorative term.

(Psychology) A person with a degree of mental retardation between that of an idiot and a moron; in a former classification of mentally retarded person, it applied to a person with an adult mental age of from four to eith years, and an I.Q. of from 26 to 50.

adjective

Imbecile adj. Destitute of strength, whether of body or mind; feeble; impotent; esp., mentally wea; feeble-minded; as, hospitals for the imbecile and insane.

Synonyms: Weak; feeble; feeble-minded; idiotic.

verb

Imbecile v. t. To weaken; to make imbecile; as, to imbecile men's courage. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Imbecile'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Imbecile" Quotes from Famous Books

... Borneo begins to lose his zest for it and to answer snappishly and sarcastically. An infinite supply of courtesy would, of course, be a priceless asset to him, but does not this work both ways? What right have people to bother other people with perfectly foolish and imbecile questions? Is there any one who cannot sympathize with a "sucker-sore" attendant? And with the people who are stationed about for the purpose of answering questions almost anywhere? There are not many of us who at one time and another have not had the feeling that we were on the wrong train even ...

— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... stellar guile, undisturbed by inter-planetary prowlings and invasions. The only trouble is that a chemist's analysis, which seems so final and authoritative to some minds, is no more nearly absolute than is identification by a child or description by an imbecile— ...

— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... they rested on her would have in them no sign of recognition, and the lips which spoke her name so lovingly utter only unmeaning words? It was terrible to contemplate, and Bessie felt she would rather see him dead than an imbecile. ...

— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. It is like being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road ...

— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... week later).... "What say you of Maupertuis dying between Two Capuchins! He was ill, this long while, of a repletion of pride; but I had not reckoned him either a hypocrite or an imbecile. I don't advise you ever to go and fill his place at Berlin; you would repent that. I am Astolpho warning Roger (Ruggiero) not to trust himself to the Enchantress Alcina; but Roger was unadvisable." [Ib. lxxviii. 197 ("Delices, ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

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