nincompoop

"Being among a lot of nincompoop girls," said Alfred.

Every nincompoop in the land rushed into free print, floating their wizened little egos into the public eye on the surge of Brissenden's greatness.

The crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with the idea that, among a thousand such atoms of mortality, her eye must have detected him.

On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing "Judy O'Flannagan and Paddy O'Rafferty."

You permitted yourself to treat your tutor thus, you nincompoop, and to dismiss him from his post?

So that Tom was not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk with a chum, he had described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking care at the same time to observe that he was a very "rich fellow."

Rawdon Crawley paid scarcely any attention to Dobbin, looking upon him as a good-natured nincompoop and under-bred City man.

But their talking put him out, and for a time he was certainly merely repeating abusive terms, "prancin' nincompoops" and the like, old terms and new.

Wycherley, who is believed to have coined the word "nincompoop" and the phrase "happy-golucky", was tasked with educating the Duke of Richmond, the illegitimate son of Charles II, but he returned to Clive when he fell out of favour with the king.

Viewers who think that today's Washington is a political circus will enjoy the many scenes of historical representatives beating fists on desks and hurling 19th-century insults at each other, the best coming from Tommy Lee Jones' brilliant Thaddeus Stevens, who calls an opponent a "fatuous nincompoop."

In one scene, he shouts that "Congress cannot render equal what God and natural law rendered unequal", to which Stevens replies, "Slavery is the only insult to natural law, you flatulent nincompoop!"

Does a poor job by a subordinate whom you consider a nincompoop make you flare up?