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Nincompoop vs Simpleton - What's the difference?

nincompoop | simpleton | Synonyms |

Nincompoop is a synonym of simpleton.


As nouns the difference between nincompoop and simpleton

is that nincompoop is a silly or foolish person while simpleton is (pejorative) a simple person lacking common sense.

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

    Related terms

    * ninny * noncompos

    simpleton

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (pejorative) A simple person lacking common sense.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 15 , author=Scott Tobias , title=Film: Reviews: The Dictator , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Baron Cohen’s new creation (and the previous ones, too) has its roots in Groucho characters like Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, Otis B. Driftwood, and Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, and the concept of a pompous simpleton running a rogue nation has obvious parallels to Duck Soup’s Rufus T. Firefly, who leads the country of Fredonia to a needless and highly preventable war. }}
  • * 2001 — , Artemis Fowl , p 92
    • The stranger had crossed a sacred line. He had mentioned the men's mothers. Nothing could get him out of a beating now, even the fact that he was obviously a simpleton'. Albeit a ' simpleton with a good vocabulary.

    External links

    * (wikipedia "simpleton")