imbecility

English

Noun

imbecility (countable and uncountable, plural imbecilities)

1. The quality of being imbecile; weakness; feebleness, especially of mind.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 89:

     The police prosecutor hammered at him and the bench had a go at him, and they commanded from him such a madhouse particularity between the distinctions of looking and seeing that Bradly was reduced to imbecility, and so contradictious were his mutterings that he was openly suspected of trying to shield that wretched tramp, whom Bradly would have gladly seen sunk in the bottomless pit reserved for snoopers.

2. Something imbecilic; a stupid action, behaviour, etc.
   • 1895, Degeneration‎^[1], New York: D. Appleton and Company, translation of Entartung by Max Simon Nordau, page 270:

     The Parnassian theory of art is mere imbecility.

Translations

quality of imbecile, stupid behaviour

• Bulgarian: слабоумие (bg) n (slaboumie), малоумие (bg) n (maloumie)
• Catalan: imbecil·litat (ca) f
• French: imbécilité (fr) f
• Greek: ηλιθιότητα (el) f (ilithiótita), βλακεία (el) f (vlakeía)
• Italian: imbecillità (it) f
• Latin: imbecillitas
• Manx: meecheeall f, meecheeallid m, ommidjys m, anlheil m, anlheiltys m, jei-hushtaght f
• Occitan: imbecillitat f
• Russian: слабоу́мие (ru) n (slaboúmije), дебили́зм (ru) m (debilízm), имбеци́льность (ru) f (imbecílʹnostʹ)
• Spanish: imbecilidad (es) f