''imbecile'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''imbecile'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

imbecile - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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.
  • ✤ It is an offence for a man to have unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman whom he knows to be an idiot or imbecile.¹
• (derogatory) A fool, an idiot.
  • ✤ VLADIMIR: Because he wouldn’t save them./ESTRAGON: From hell?/VLADIMIR: Imbecile! From death.²
  • ✤ “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!”³

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
  • ✤ And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun, and I could see nothing more for smoke.⁴

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French imbécile, from Latin imbēcillus (“weak, feeble”), literally “without a staff”.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɪmbəˈsiːl/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈɪmbəsɪl/, /ˈɪmbəsəl/

📊 ➺

• (obsolete) IPA: /ɪmˈbɛsɪl/⁵

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1956, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 7”, in Sexual Offences Act 1956 ‎${}^{[1]}$, page 2: ↩

2. 1954, Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot ‎${}^{[2]}$, →ISBN, page 5: ↩

3. 2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN: ↩

4. 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: ↩

5. Walker, John (1791), “Imbecile”, in *A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary […] *, London: G. G. J. and J. Robinſon […] and T. Cadell, →OCLC, page 289, column 3 of 3. ↩

Link to original

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