What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Nincompoop vs Nitwit - What's the difference?

nincompoop | nitwit | Synonyms |

As nouns the difference between nincompoop and nitwit

is that nincompoop is a silly or foolish person while nitwit is a scatterbrained or stupid person.

nincompoop

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A silly or foolish person.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1680 , author=Matthew Stevenson , title=The wits paraphras'd: or, Paraphrase upon paraphrase: In a burlesque on the several late translations of Ovids Epistles ... citation , page=161 , passage=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. }}
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1694 , author=Thomas D'Urfey , title=The Comical History of Don Quixote: As it was Acted at the Queen's Theatre in Dorset-Garden ... , chapter=Part I, Act I, Scene I citation , page=6 , passage=...Heaven knows the time when? Art not thou asham’d to see me, thou Nincompoop ? }}
  • * 1905: Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=507211157&tag=Orczy,+Baroness:+The+Scarlet+Pimpernel,+1905&query=+nincompoop&id=OrcPimp]
  • 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...

    Derived terms

    * nincompoopery

    Synonyms

    * (foolish person) dunderhead, fop, fool, imbecile, fuckwit * See also

    nitwit

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A scatterbrained or stupid person.
  • Synonyms

    * See also