as in idiot
a stupid person
only an imbecile would leave their car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, and then be surprised when the vehicle was stolen
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
variants
or imbecilic
as in idiotic
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
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Recent Examples of imbecile
Sam Sacks, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2016
Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government.
—Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2016
Steve Lopez Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2021
Noun
Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy.
—Sam Sacks, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2016
Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government.
—Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2016
Adjective
But Newsom was voted into office by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, and he’s handled the unprecedented dual challenges of COVID-19 and climate change reasonably well and far better than the imbecile Trump.
—Steve Lopez Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 7 May 2021
Recent Examples of Synonyms for imbecile
Adjective
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Too many young people are making idiotic short-term financial decisions that hamper long-term success.Chandler Dean, The New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2023
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Beyond the Lungs Two other cardiac cases impressed me — and blew away the idiotic notion that young people are immune to COVID-19.Tony Dajer, Discover Magazine, 30 July 2020
Noun
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An underrated gem — not enough people have seen this top-tier season — Squirrels Trip has some fabulous vocals, very funny lyrics, a heavy dose of stupid, and an engaging story.Barry Levitt, Vulture, 19 Apr. 2024
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The stupid!Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 2 July 2021
Adjective
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Ratajkowski has been fighting the stereotype of the dumb model from the beginning of her career.Daniel Jackson, Allure, 18 July 2017
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Ninety nine percent of all NFL players are explicitly not dumb.Andy Benoit, The MMQB, 10 July 2017
Adjective
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If the young shortstop is truly as good as gone, the Blue Jays would be foolish not to trade him.Kevin Lynn, Newsweek, 8 Jan. 2025
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While admirable, the plan to resettle the poor was foolish in retrospect as the Low Country soil is sandy and the weather too hot for farming.Yelena Moroz Alpert, Architectural Digest, 27 Dec. 2024
Adjective
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CEXs have already had to kowtow to former EU member the United Kingdom’s inane crypto laws, forcing exchanges to code new front-ends and to exclude certain products and services from their UK service.Sean Lee, Forbes, 5 Jan. 2025
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The serious can exist alongside the inane, and the two enhance each other; in this universe, everyone deserves the right to a good bit of fun, and mass entertainment must serve the solemn duty of providing it.Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 20 Dec. 2024
Adjective
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Second, this rationale for regulation proved to be illogical and fatuous as conceded by U.S. Courts and the Federal Communications Commission in the decades since.Carine Harb, Newsweek, 9 Jan. 2025
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This fatuous facial gesture is immediately relatable but also, as Locke discusses below, one that can be read in a number of different ways.Andy Battaglia, ARTnews.com, 20 Nov. 2024
Adjective
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The federal government, in all its wisdom, is once again gearing up to save the witless American people from themselves.Noah Rothman, National Review, 3 Jan. 2025
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By most accounts, Trump’s ground game—powered by the witless Musk—was a bit of a mess, but Harris’s professional field operation seems to have been helpless to stem the tide of Trump’s support.The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2024
Adjective
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Alonso may not be the priority at first base for the Bronx Bombers, but to say there is zero interest is asinine.Gord Magill, Newsweek, 20 Dec. 2024
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Altman’s is a plainly asinine claim; a bunch of code running in a data center is not the same as a brain.Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 6 Dec. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Imbecile.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/imbecile. Accessed 13 Jan. 2025.
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