debile
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: dĕbēlʹ
ipa: /dɛˈbiːl/
rhymes: -iːl
Forms: form: debiles
Etymology: From Middle French débile (“weak”), from Latin dēbilis.
Senses: examples: text: A very important group of the mentally abnormal, the oligophrenes, who — according to the degree of lack of intelligence — are called idiots, imbeciles, or debiles, are inter alia also predisposed to misbehaviour because they lack the ability to understand what to do in a situation demanding action.
ref: 1935, Olof Kinberg, Basic Problems of Criminology, William Heinemann, page 178:
text: As a rule debiles act on normalpsychologic^([sic]) inducements and their criminality is determined by social influences, which they are not apt to assimilate without conflicts. Therefore idiots are always irresponsible, but debiles are as a rule responsible.
ref: 1954, Nauchni Trudove, volumes 1–2, page 52:
text: Oligophrenes (debiles) are taught in special schools in the maintenance of the Ministry of Public Education of the R.S.F.S.R.
ref: 1956, William Line, Margery R. King, editors, Mental Health in Public Affairs: A Report, University of Toronto Press, page 216:
text: On the average delinquents have a normal intelligence; however, there is frequent neglect of intelligence. True debiles are admitted by the gang, to serve as an instrument of blind force.
ref: 1961, Abstracts on Criminology and Penology, volume 1, page 398, column 1:
text: Idiots are often unable to develop stable motor conditional reflexes. Imbeciles and debiles are able to give conditional reflexes.
ref: 1962, Christian Astrup, Schizophrenia: Conditional Reflex Studies, Thomas, →ISBN, page 64:
text: The Dutch use two basic terms to classify retarded children served by B.L.O. schools: debile and imbecile. In psychometric terms the upper limit of the debile classification is an intelligence quotient of 80 and the lower limit approximately 50 I.Q. […] The debiles are most frequently recognized in the early years of the ordinary primary schools.
ref: 1962 July, The President’s Panel on Mental Retardation: Report of the Mission to The Netherlands, […] U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, page 15:
text: Spherical refraction in Debiles and Imbeciles / Fig. 3. The percentage values for the debiles are placed at the right side of the columns, the values for the imbeciles are placed at the left sides.
ref: 1964, Jakob Øster, editor, International Copenhagen Congress on the Scientific Study of Mental Retardation, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 7th-14th, 1964, page 781:
text: The uncomplicated untalented: This is the pupil whose scholastic progress is that of a debile, although his intellectual potential should enable him to cope with ordinary classwork. […] Another group of “pseudo-debiles.” are those pupils whose problems will not automatically disappear with time and whose eventual progress will demand exceptional educational aid. […] Pupils who have been classified as mentally handicapped due to neurological defects or psycho-neurological dysfunction, experience more problems in the field of visual perception than the debile.
ref: 1967, South African Journal of Pedagogy, volumes 1–5, pages 64–65:
text: Among the feebleminded patients 78.5. per cent were debiles, 16.3 per cent imbeciles, 5.1 per cent idiots. […] The debiles were more inclined to criminal acts than other feebleminded patients.
ref: 1968, Вопросы клинической неврологии и психиатрии [Voprosy kliničeskoj nevrologii i psixiatrii], volume 7, page 134:
roman: Voprosy kliničeskoj nevrologii i psixiatrii
text: The Russians have retained the old French system of classification. Debiles are the highest group of retarded, which would roughly correspond to our educable mentally retarded.
ref: 1972, Education and Training of the Mentally Retarded, volumes 7–8, Division on Mental Retardation, Council for Exceptional Children, page 169, column 2:
text: In the Soviet system the term debiles is used to refer to youngsters who seem comparable to those we identify as educable. Schools for debiles are known as “auxiliary” schools. The Ministry of Health deals with schools for debiles with multiple handicaps and for “imbeciles.”
ref: 1974, Edwin W. Martin, Jr.; Donald Blodgett; Stella A. Edwards; William C. Geer; John W. Melcher, “Administration of Education for Handicapped Children in the Soviet Union”, in James J. Gallagher, editor, Windows on Russia: United States–USSR Seminar on Instruction of Handicapped Children, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 4:
text: The most desirable social combinations to which children are attracted are idiots and imbeciles and imbeciles and debiles. […] Similarly, when debiles are put with other debiles, their numbers averaged 2.0 people with an average duration of 9.2 minutes. On the other hand, when imbeciles and debiles were put together, their collectives averaged 5.2 members and the duration was 12.8 minutes.
ref: 1993, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, translated by Jane E. Knox and Carol B. Stevens, edited by Robert W. Rieber and Aaron S. Carton, The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, volume 2 (The Fundamentals of Defectology [Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities]), New York, N.Y.: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, →ISBN, page 200:
text: Debiles were incapable of subtle intellectual feelings, which Soviet psychiatry defined as duty, comradeship and satisfaction.
ref: 1999, Andrew Boyd, Baroness Cox: A Voice for the Voiceless, Lion, →ISBN, page 96:
text: With the Binet-Simon Test, a mental level and age could be quantified. Those with subnormal intelligence were considered idiots, moderate mental deficients were imbeciles, and debiles were those with mild mental defects.
ref: 2023, Mark M. Rich, Invisible Eugenics: How the Medical System and Public Schools Are Killing Your Children, 2nd edition:
coordinate_terms: idiot
imbecile
glosses: A person with debilism.