Nincompoop

Encyclopedia : N : NI : NIN : Nincompoop

Nincompoop is a term for a person who publicly displays his ignorance. In the 18th century, the word was sometimes written as nicompoop or nickumpoop. The word is commonly used in all English-speaking nations and is often used to describe an ignorant person. The expression is clearly derogatory.

Origins

The true origins of the word are unclear.

In his 1676 play, The Plain Dealer, the English playwright William Wycherley wrote these lines: "Thou senseless, impertinent, quibbling, drivelling, feeble, paralytic, impotent, fumbling, frigid nincompoop". There is a person called Nincompoop in the play Love for Money, written in 1691 by Thomas D'Urfey.

The author of the first English dictionary, Dr. Samuel Johnson, thought that it might have derived from the judicial expression non compos mentis, (Latin) meaning "not of sound mind".

As Mr. Stephen Philp, who has been studying the origins of language for many years, proposed, it seems likely that it was derived from ne comprend pas (French) meaning "[He] doesn't understand".

The word nincompoop is not used in the novel The Wind in the Willows, written in 1908 by Kenneth Grahame. However, in the movie Mr. Toad swings from a chandelier shouting "You're all nincompoops!".

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.