nincompoop

Earlier (1676) nicompoop, possibly from Latin non compos mentis (“not of sound mind”), although the lack of the second n in the early form casts doubt on this origin. The earliest known use of the nincompoop spelling is from 1680.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɪŋ.kəm.puːp/

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nincompoop (plural nincompoops)

1. A silly or foolish person.
   • 1680, Matthew Stevenson, The wits paraphras'd: or, Paraphrase upon paraphrase: In a burlesque on the several late translations of Ovids Epistles ...‎, page 161:

     Tis such another Nincompoop,
     I sleep, and he begins to droop.
     He sees, yet keeps his Eyes a winking,
     Says nought, but pays it off with thinking.

   • 1694, Thomas D'Urfey, “Part I, Act I, Scene I”, in The Comical History of Don Quixote: As it was Acted at the Queen's Theatre in Dorset-Garden ...‎, page 6:

     ...Heaven knows the time when? Art not thou asham’d to see me, thou Nincompoop?

   • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel

     No wonder that Chauvelin's spies had failed to detect, in the apparently brainless nincompoop, the man whose reckless daring and resourceful ingenuity had baffled the keenest French spies...

• (foolish person): dunderhead, fop, fool, imbecile, nitwit
• See also Thesaurus:fool

• nincompoopish
• nincompoopism
• nincompoopery

• ninny
• noncompos