imbecility means the quality of being imbecile; weakness; feebleness, especially of mind. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 75 out of 100.
imbecility is pronounced /ˌɪmbəˈsɪləti/.
Why “imbecility” is a great word
IMBECILITY — [Noun] A profound deficiency in mental capacity or judgment; the state of being extremely foolish. From Middle English inbecillite, from Middle French imbecillité, and directly from Latin imbēcillitās (“weakness, feebleness”), from imbēcillus (“weak”). First attested in English in the early 15th century meaning physical weakness. Unlike “stupidity,” which implies a general lack of sense, or “ineptitude,” which denotes practical clumsiness, imbecility signifies a structural collapse of reason. It is the strategist meticulously fortifying the wrong hill, the gambler staking his house on a single rigged hand, the tyrant believing his own propaganda—a spectacle of ruin that feels less like an accident than a gravitational pull toward the abyss, the mind’s specific weakness made manifest.
Etymology
From Middle English inbecillite, from Middle French imbecilité, imbecillité, and its etymon Classical Latin imbēcillitās. By surface analysis, imbecile + -ity.
noun
- The quality of being imbecile; weakness; feebleness, especially of mind.“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 ”
- Something imbecilic; a stupid action, behaviour, etc.“The Parnassian theory of art is mere imbecility.”