imbecile
UK/ɪmbəˈsiːl//ˈɪmbəsɪl/
imbecile noun: 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.
Noun
imbecile (plural imbeciles)
- 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.1956, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 7”, in Sexual Offences Act 1956, page 2
- A fool, an idiot.
- VLADIMIR: Because he wouldn't save them. / ESTRAGON: From hell? / VLADIMIR: Imbecile! From death.1954, Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, →ISBN, page 5
- “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!”2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN
Adjective
imbecile (comparative more imbecile, superlative most imbecile)
- 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.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...
imbecile meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
imbecile in Tamil
- நனிபேதை, மட்டு, மூடன், மனநொய், அறிவாற்றலற்றவர், அறிவாற்றல் குறை
imbecile in Urdu
- بدھو, پگلوٹ
imbecile in Bengali
- imbecile, unsteady, restless, impatient
- অকৃতধী ôkritôdhi
imbecile in Malayalam
- ബുദ്ധിശൂന്യൻ, അശക്തം, ക്ഷീണിച്ച
More languagesFewer languages
- imbecile in Kannada
- ಹೆಡ್ಡ, ತಿಳಿಗೇಡಿ, ಹುಟ್ಟು ದಡ್ಡ, ಪೆದ್ದ
- imbecile in Tagalog
- tulala
- imbecile in Indonesian
- bodoh, bego, tolol
- imbecile in Vietnamese
- người khờ dại
Examples of imbecile in a sentence
- Now some adventuring imbecile had acquired an elective sickness and was paying its price.
- Nurse B, in contrast, frownfully wonders how such imbeciles could ever come to exist.
- “You may be a feather—headed imbecile but is it a crime to be a feather-headed imbecile?
Forms of imbecile
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | imbeciles |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more imbecile |
| superlative | most imbecile |
Origin of imbecile
Borrowed from Middle French imbécile, from Latin imbēcillus (“weak, feeble”), literally “without a staff”.
Words formed from imbecile
Questions about imbecile
- What does imbecile mean?
- Imbecile means 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.
- What is imbecile in Tamil?
- Imbecile in Tamil is நனிபேதை, மட்டு, மூடன். See Imbecile meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is imbecile?
- Imbecile can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce imbecile?
- Imbecile is pronounced /ɪmbəˈsiːl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of imbecile?
- The plural of imbecile is imbeciles.
Words near imbecile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: imbecile (page history and authors); imbecile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); imbecile (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অকৃতধী (Bengali) (page history and authors); imbecile (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); imbecile (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-imbecile.ogg.
Cite this entry: “imbecile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/imbecile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.