nincompoop

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“
Mrs. Pullet--the wife of a gentleman farmer, whose great characteristic is a habit of sucking lozenges, and whom Tom Tulliver most justly sets down as a "nincompoop"--is almost sillier than Mrs. Tulliver. She has the gift of tears ever ready to flow, and sheds them profusely on the anticipation of imaginary and ridiculous woes.

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Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A silly, foolish, or stupid person.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • "Do you take me for a complete nincompoop, Tate By no means," that gentleman answered mildly. —  Mary Balogh - Daring Masquerade.html
  • Old man nincompoop is an expert on the Malay psyche. —  Planet Malaysia
  • That's pretty much all I can say about Kyle Ranson's new work, with out blathering on like a nincompoop. —  RVABlogs
  • Charlie Gibson will expose Palin as the nincompoop, gun-toting, too-fertile tart Democrats say she is. —  Top Stories - Google News
  • A casual observer would have put him down as a fashionable nincompoop, one of those young men whose very appearance is supposed to move the British worker to outbursts of socialistic fury. —  Our Casualty, and Other Stories 1918
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

ninny ·  dullard ·  ignoramus ·  bungler ·  soundbite ·  ornithopod ·  dolt ·  harlequinade ·  touranian ·  ravening ·  nitwit ·  halfwit
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Origin unknown .

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also nincumpoop; a variation, wrested to give it a slang aspect (and then explained as “a person nine times worse than a fool,” as if connected with nine), of the L. non compos, sc. mentis, not in possession of his mind: see non compos mentis.
 

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/ˈnɪŋkəmpup/
by American Heritage

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