imbecile
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Imbecile \Im"be*cile\, a. [L. imbecillis, and imbecillus; of
unknown origin: cf. F. imb['e]cile.]
Destitute of strength, whether of body or mind; feeble;
impotent; esp., mentally wea; feeble-minded; as, hospitals
for the imbecile and insane.
Syn: Weak; feeble; feeble-minded; idiotic.
[1913 Webster]
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Imbecile \Im"be*cile\, n.
1. One destitute of strength; esp., one of feeble mind; --
sometimes used as a pejorative term.
[1913 Webster]
2. (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.
[PJC]
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
160 Moby Thesaurus words for "imbecile":
ament, amputee, anemic, apish, arrested, asinine, ass, asthenic,
babbling, backward, batty, befooled, beguiled, besotted,
blithering, bloodless, born fool, brainless, buffoonish, burbling,
chicken, clot, cockeyed, congenital idiot, cowardly, crackbrained,
cracked, crazy, credulous, cretin, cretinistic, cretinous, cripple,
daffy, daft, dazed, debilitated, defective, deformity, dim-witted,
dithering, dizzy, donkey, doting, driveling, drooling, drooping,
droopy, dull, dumb, effete, etiolated, faint, faintish, fatuitous,
fatuous, feeble, feebleminded, flabby, flaccid, flaky, floppy,
fond, fool, foolheaded, foolish, fuddled, futile, gaga, golem,
gone, goofy, gulled, gutless, half-baked, half-wit, half-witted,
handicapped person, idiot, idiotic, imbecilic, impotent, inane,
incapable, inept, infatuated, insane, jackass, jerk, juggins,
kooky, languid, languorous, limber, limp, listless, loony,
lustless, mad, marrowless, maudlin, maundering, mentally defective,
mentally deficient, mentally handicapped, mentally retarded,
mongoloid, mongoloid idiot, moron, moronic, natural, natural idiot,
natural-born fool, nerveless, nincompoop, ninny, not all there,
nutty, paralytic, paraplegic, pithless, pooped, powerless,
quadriplegic, retarded, rubbery, sapless, sappy, screwy, senseless,
sentimental, silly, simp, simple, simpleminded, simpleton,
simpletonian, sinewless, slack, slobbering, slow, slow-witted,
soft, spineless, strengthless, stupid, subnormal, the crippled,
the handicapped, thoughtless, tomfool, unhardened, unnerved,
unstrung, wacky, weak, weakly, wet, witless, zany
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