Imbecile

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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 [gcide]:

  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 The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Imbecile \Im"be*cile\, v. t.
     To weaken; to make imbecile; as, to imbecile men's courage.
     [Obs.] --Jer. Taylor.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  imbecile
       adj : having a mental age of three to seven years [syn: {imbecilic},
              {idiotic}]
       n : a person of subnormal intelligence [syn: {idiot}, {cretin},
           {moron}, {changeling}, {half-wit}, {retard}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  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