How To Use Imbecility In A Sentence
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All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible imbecility.
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)
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There's enough manic imbecility, though, to maintain the film's screwball tone.
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The kind of coyness which she had displayed had been the very infatuation of feminine imbecility.
Ayala's Angel
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He is for some time a raving maniac, and then falls into a state of gay and compassionable imbecility, which is described with inimitable beauty in the close of this story.”
Crabbe
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The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for such exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid imbecility.
Probabilities : An aid to Faith
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In fact, except Oliver Cromwell, King William, a few gentlemen who had the misfortune to be executed or exiled for high treason, and every dissenting minister that he has or can find occasion to notice, there are hardly any persons mentioned who are not stigmatized as knaves or fools, differing only in degrees of "turpitude" and "imbecility".
Famous Reviews
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A compound of imbecility and baseness, yet an object of commiseration: an unmanly, blubbering, lovesick, querulous creature; a soldier, whining, piping and besprent with tears, destitute of any good quality to gain esteem, or any brilliant trait or interesting circumstance to relieve an actor under the weight of representing him.
The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810
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In his consequential verdancy, his aristocratic boobyism, and his lack-brain originality, this pithless hereditary squireling is quite inimitable and irresistible; -- a tall though slender specimen of most effective imbecility, whose manners and character must needs all be from within, because he lacks force of nature to shape or dress himself by any model.
Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. With An Historical Sketch Of The Origin And Growth Of The Drama In England
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Even in that phrase the Emperor betrayed the fact that his rescript was the outcome, not of his convictions, but of his imbecility.
Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom
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Dinmont regarded Brown's tenderness to a "brock" -- as a proof of incredible imbecility, or, rather, of want of proper antipathy to vermin.
Alexander Pope English Men of Letters Series
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The Eskimo is not "muffled imbecility," as some one has called him, nor is he dull and slow of understanding, as Vitruvius describes the northern nation to be "from breathing a thick air" -- which, by the way, is thin, elastic and highly ozonized -- nor is he, according to Dr. Beke, "degenerated almost to the lowest state compatible with the retention of rational endowments.
The First Landing on Wrangel Island With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants
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In his consequential verdancy, his aristocratic boobyism, and his lack-brain originality, this pithless hereditary squireling is quite inimitable and irresistible; ” a tall though slender specimen of most effective imbecility, whose manners and character must needs all be from within, because he lacks force of nature to shape or dress himself by any model.
Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters
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To give but one example, the kind of talk in which most of us indulge is morally evil and spiritually dangerous, for most of what we say is inspired by greed, sensuality, self-love, malice, uncharitableness or pure imbecility.
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This area will be reserved for shorter, more gnomic utterances, hopefully enigmatic and curt enough to conceal the arrant imbecility that will have spawned them.
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He is for some time a raving maniac, and then falls into a state of gay and compassionable imbecility, which is described with inimitable beauty in the close of this story.
English Men of Letters: Crabbe
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Marcel went into his peroration, a rant about the imbecility of objective, reductionist explanations of human consciousness.
TROPIC OF NIGHT
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With us there was no lack of mutual respect, except in matters of faith and practice; but he no more tolerated my "crankiness," lunacy -- perhaps imbecility -- in withholding food from the sick than I his paganism in enforcing it.
The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure
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Since its founding in 1969, the Man Booker prize for fiction regularly outrages discerning readers by the pertinacious imbecility of its judges' choices for the shortlist—though, just as often, the actual winner has pleased the same readers.
Time, Again, for Posh Bingo
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But these are checked by dispiriting reflections on my melancholy temper and imbecility of mind.
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The two young gentlemen, having seen their blooming charges safely within the door of the Alms-House, and vainly endeavored to look through the keyhole at them going up-stairs, scuffle away together with that sensation of blended imbecility and irascibility which is equally characteristic of callow youth and inexperienced Thomas Cats when retiring together from the society of female friends who seem to be still on the fence as regards their ultimate preferences.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870
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He is indignant at being charged with the "imbecility of hoping to force the working classes into the churches by earthing up the paths of escape.
From the archive, 13 January 1863: Bishops rail against Sunday excursions
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If you are going to employ men to build a wall, and if those men are to be treated simple as tools, it is imbecility to make such a design for your wall as depends upon your having masons who are artists.
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Moreover, as before remarked, the apparent imbecility resulting from confederacy and municipalism combined was for a season remedied by the actual preponderance of Holland.
PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete
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‘It is useless,’ Dr. Johnson once remarked, ‘to criticize an unresisting imbecility.’
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One is at times reminded of Belloc's remark to the effect that the best proof of the divine foundation and support of the Church is that no institution run with such knavish imbecility could otherwise survive.
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Such organizations, of course, must have leaders; there must be men in them whose ignorance and imbecility are measurably less abject than the ignorance and imbecility of the average.
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'indefiniteness' and 'general imbecility' of what we had to offer -- all so unworthy a _Bostonian_ audience -- we commenced, and with many interruptions of applause, concluded.
International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850
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Phoebe pictured Maeve, sitting in regal splendor amid her pillows and her billet-doux, opining on the imbecility of love.
EVERVILLE
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Phoebe pictured Maeve, sitting in regal splendor amid her pillows and her billet-doux, opining on the imbecility of love.
EVERVILLE
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The coach's incursion made way for other drivers, swift to take advantage of this piece of professional imbecility.
INSTANCES OF THE NUMBER 3
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Sometimes, in momentary reaction from the pent-up feelings of indignation and revolt, which were chronic with me during my imprisonments, I could have laughed out loud at the imbecility and pathos of human fallibility, that civilised (?) educated beings could continue such processes by way of ridding themselves from the dangers and active harmfulness of crime.
Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences
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Woman, with her instinct of behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the hall.
XII. Essays. Manners. 1844
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Astonished Europe rings with the mystery for ten months; sees only lie unfold itself from lie; corruption among the lofty and the low, gulosity, credulity, imbecility, strength nowhere but in the hunger.
The French Revolution
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Marcel went into his peroration, a rant about the imbecility of objective, reductionist explanations of human consciousness.
TROPIC OF NIGHT
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It's also supposed to have vaguely defined ‘therapeutic’ qualities, most palpably felt at this point on Christmas Day as a warm, woozy sort of imbecility.