Word.ws English Dictionary

imbeciles

imbeciles is the plural of imbecile.

Meaning of imbecile

Noun

imbecile (plural imbeciles)

  1. (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.1956, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 7”, in Sexual Offences Act 1956, page 2
  2. (derogatory) 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

See all 3 meanings of imbecile

Questions about imbeciles

What is imbeciles the plural of?
Imbeciles is the plural of imbecile.

Words near imbeciles in the dictionary

  1. imbaying
  2. imbays
  3. imbe
  4. imbecile
  5. imbecilely
  6. imbeciles
  7. imbecilic
  8. imbecilically
  9. imbecilification
  10. imbecilism
  11. imbecilitate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: imbeciles (page history and authors); imbecile (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.

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