Archaic terms for intellectual disability

Terms for intellectual disability often become used in negative ways. They are then replaced with new words in the process known as the euphemism treadmill.

These words are no longer used to describe people with intellectual disability. Some are considered rude or offensive.

List of terms

General intellectual disability

These words refer to low intelligence in general.

• Abderite originated from the ancient stereotype that people from the Thracian city of Abdera had low intelligence.
• Amentia referred to people who showed cognitive difficulties early in life and was an umbrella term. It was in contrast to dementia, which is acquired later in life.
• Fool was sometimes used for people with more severe intellectual disability.
• Idiot referred to people with measured IQs of 0-25 in the early 20th century. It came from the Greek word idios, which means "private," suggesting a person who keeps to themselves. It has been used as an insult since the 17th century.
• Imbecile referred to people with measured IQs of 26-50. It originates from the Latin imbecillius, which means weak-minded. It was used from the 16th to 19th centuries.
• Mental deficiency/mental defective were used around the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Mental retardation was invented as a kinder term for intellectual disability, meaning "slow." People then derived insults like "retard" and "-tard." It became an insult by the 1960s and is now considered highly derogatory. In 2010, the United States president Barrack Obama signed Rosa's Law, changing uses of "mental retardation" to "intellectual disability."
• Mental subnormality was sometimes used.
• Moron referred to people with measured IQs of 51-70 in the early 20th century. Eugenicist Henry Goddard invented the word from the Greek word mōros, which means "foolish" or "not intelligent."
• Psychoasthenia suggested weakness in the mind.
• Simpleton, a term introduced by S. G. Howe in 1846, was meant to describe mild intellectual disability. It never gained much traction in the medical community.

General brain-related disability

These words were sometimes used to describe people with mental illnesses and/or developmental disabilities.

• Mentally challenged were popular in the late 20th century.
• Feeble-minded was a catch-all term for various brain-related conditions. It was popular in the eugenics movement. It was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Dumb often referred to people who couldn't speak, but also was sometimes used for intellectual disability.

Conditions involving intellectual disability

• Cretin/cretinism was once used to describe people with congenital iodine deficiency syndrome. It comes from a French word for Christian, implying that people with this condition were "still Christians" who deserved human dignity.
• Mongolism/mongoloid was used for people with Down syndrome. The Mongolian People's Republic objected to the term, and in 1960, the World Health Organization granted their request to stop its use.

The euphemism treadmill

The euphemism treadmill describes how neutral words can be turned into insults by people who see certain traits as degrading.

Thanks to this process, institutions of all kinds have had to repeatedly change their names. This affects the names of schools, hospitals, societies, government departments, and academic journals. For example, the Midlands Institute of Mental Subnormality became the British Institute of Mental Handicap and is now the British Institute of Learning Disability.

The euphemism treadmill is likely to continue until societal ableism stops.

See also

• Ableism
• Euphemism treadmill
• Henry H. Goddard
• Intellectual disability