IMBECILE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does imbecile mean? 

• IMBECILE (noun)
  The noun IMBECILE has 1 sense:

1. a person of subnormal intelligence

  Familiarity information: IMBECILE used as a noun is very rare.

• IMBECILE (adjective)
  The adjective IMBECILE has 1 sense:

1. having a mental age of three to seven years

  Familiarity information: IMBECILE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMBECILE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person of subnormal intelligence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

changeling; cretin; half-wit; idiot; imbecile; moron; retard

Hypernyms ("imbecile" is a kind of...):

simple; simpleton (a person lacking intelligence or common sense)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imbecile"):

mongoloid (a person suffering from Down syndrome (no longer used technically in this sense, now considered offensive))

Derivation:

imbecilic (having a mental age of three to seven years)

• IMBECILE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having a mental age of three to seven years

Synonyms:

idiotic; imbecile; imbecilic

Similar:

retarded (relatively slow in mental or emotional or physical development)

Derivation:

imbecility (retardation more severe than a moron but not as severe as an idiot)

 Context examples 

However innocent he might be, he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances were very black against him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her husband developed some hateful qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so pleased was he at chumming thus with the captain.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

First we drove to Brixton Workhouse Infirmary, where we found that it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some days before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former servant, and that they had obtained permission to take her away with them.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

While Amy dressed, she issued her orders, and Jo obeyed them, not without entering her protest, however, for she sighed as she rustled into her new organdie, frowned darkly at herself as she tied her bonnet strings in an irreproachable bow, wrestled viciously with pins as she put on her collar, wrinkled up her features generally as she shook out the handkerchief, whose embroidery was as irritating to her nose as the present mission was to her feelings, and when she had squeezed her hands into tight gloves with three buttons and a tassel, as the last touch of elegance, she turned to Amy with an imbecile expression of countenance, saying meekly...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

By an examination of the ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)