feebleminded

Thân thiện

A child with a feebleminded condition receives patient, one-on-one help from a tutor.

Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Having impaired or incomplete mental development: Describes a person whose intellectual development is significantly below average, often used in historical or clinical contexts to indicate limited cognitive ability or reasoning capacity.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • The court appointed a guardian for the feebleminded individual.
  • Outdated laws once used the term "feebleminded" to describe a wide range of intellectual disabilities.

Advanced Usage

• Legal/Historical Context: The term is largely archaic and considered offensive in modern usage. It was formerly used in legal and medical classifications.
  • Early 20th-century eugenics policies targeted those labeled as feebleminded.

Variants and Related Words

• Feeblemindedness (noun): The state or condition of being feebleminded.
  • The diagnosis of feeblemindedness was often misapplied.

Synonyms

• Intellectually disabled: (Modern, preferred term) Having significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior.
• Developmentally delayed: Slower development in mental or physical abilities.

Important Note on Usage

• The term 'feebleminded' is now considered pejorative and clinically imprecise. It is strongly recommended to use person-first, respectful language such as "a person with an intellectual disability" in contemporary contexts.

Học thuật

Adjective

1. retarded in intellectual development

Từ đồng nghĩa

• backward
• half-witted
• slow-witted