Piece of shit. Simple and to the point. Shit’s pretty gross and it’s universal human instinct to avoid it. Maybe even shithead if you want a single word.
Asshole. Gender neutral and not tied to ethnicity since we all have one. Maybe even going further and calling someone an asshole related condition like prolapsed rectum or hemorrhoid, things that can happen to anyone, are pretty painful and definitely to be avoided, but AFAIK were never conditions that were heavily marginalized or shamed.
Clown or fool. Clowns/fools are types of characters people played historically (and still do?), IMO it doesn’t imply anything about a person’s actual intelligence or mental state, only their actions. You’re not born a clown or fool, but you can definitely act like one. Also lends itself to a snarky 🤡 emoji I’ve seen some people here use instead of typing out an insult.
Though there could be additional context or history to any of these terms I’m not aware of that push them into one of the -ist categories, IDK I’m not a linguist.
















It is just a word. It means to delay or the opposite of “advance” and is still used like that in industries like aviation and terms like fire removedant.
But when you use it to call someone stupid, that’s when you’re using it in the context of ablism and as a slur.
Similar to the term for a female dog, which is still used in veterinary medicine and research to mean an actual dog that is female. Though like the R word, the context as a slur is gradually discouraging its use even as its original meaning because people don’t want to risk having it misunderstood.