Feeb

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Slang for a weak, dim-witted or foolish person, often used as a mildly insulting term
2. An informal, derogatory name for someone regarded as stupid, incompetent or lacking strength
3. American slang describing a person who is considered dull-witted, naive or easily taken advantage of

Etymology: "Feeb" is American slang, a clipping of "feeble-minded," which itself joins the adjective "feeble" to "minded." The adjective traces back through Middle English "fble" and Anglo-Norman "feblebor" to Latin "flebilis," meaning "lamentable," which is why the word once described something pitiable rather than something foolish. The "minded" half is English, from "mind" with the past-participle ending "-ed," the same ending that makes "learned" or "wicked-minded" describe a state a person has. Feeble-minded was a term used for people judged to have limited intellectual capacity, and it was frequently applied in a clinical or legal manner in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. "Feeb" followed as a shortened, more casual form, mostly in American English, where it came to mean a dim or foolish person in everyday speech.

Synonyms: dimwit, idiot