The Ship of Fools Fully Fraught and Richly Laden with Asses, Fools, Jack-daws, Ninnihammers, Coxcombs, Slender-wits, Shallowbrains, Paper-Skuls, Simpletons, Nickumpoops, Wiseakers, Dunces, and Blockheads. Declaring their several Natures, Manners, and Constitutions; the occasion why this Ship was built, with the places of their intended Voyage, and a lift of the Officers that bear Command therein [book title].

Mous[trappa]. O you huffing Son of a Whore. / Drink[allup]. You rotten Jack in a box. / Bean[tosser]. You foul mouth'd Nickumpoop.

’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.

May'ſt thou paſs for a Nincumpoop all the World over, / From Paris to France, and from England to Dover.

[H]ad he dropped it [a hat] like a gooſe—like a puppy—like an aſs—or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool,—like a ninny—like a nicompoop—it had failed, and the effects upon the heart had been loſt.

What, do you give it up so? you poor, ſpiritleſs nincumpoops! I would roar till I burſted firſt, before I would give it up so to such a low-liv'd, beggarly rabble.

Because of this situation, you find the idlers, the never-do-wells, the nicompoops, the unqualified and the misfits these days getting on better in life than their hardworking colleagues.

Production failures, screw-ups, and faulty service aren't usually the fault of the supposed nincompoops with whom we're dealing but instead the Nincompoopery—i.e., the meta-foolishness—of the companies and systems in which they're forced to work. Ill-planned, outdated, or ludicrous organizational structures can turn even the most eager employee into a nincompoop, or at least force him or her to seem like one.

Nincompoop

Meaning

Noun