dimwit
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dimwit
Explanation
A dimwit is a person who's not very smart. If you catch your friend sending a text message while he's driving, you can yell at him to put his phone down and call him a dimwit. No one wants to be called a dimwit, since it implies incompetence and a low IQ — it's important to use this word carefully to avoid offending someone. Still, when your brother leaves a pizza unattended in a room with his two big dogs, you'll probably have to say, "Well of course they ate it, you dimwit." The word was coined in the US, as 1920s college slang.
Vocabulary lists containing dimwit
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Amadeus” serves Joseph no better than it does Salieri, portraying the ruler as a dithering dimwit.
From The New Yorker ● May 27, 2019
What dimwit decided Arizona would be a great place to grow cotton?
From New York Times ● Nov. 28, 2017
Woodrow Wilson, the erudite president of Princeton with a doctorate in political science, was followed into office by Warren Harding, who was just smart enough to know he was a dimwit.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 18, 2017
Hours of enquiry yielded a solitary rumour: the girls were at a party and the love of my life was seeing a local quarry-faced dimwit called Siz.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 11, 2017
Why, if I had a penny for each person what axed me if you was a dimwit, I’d be rich as George Washington!
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
