idiot
Americannoun
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Informal. an utterly foolish or senseless person.
If you think you can wear that outfit to a job interview and get hired, you're an idiot!
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Psychology. (no longer in technical use; considered offensive) a person of the lowest order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.
noun
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a person with severe mental retardation
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a foolish or senseless person
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of idiot
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin idiōta, from Greek idiṓtēs “private person, layman, person lacking skill or expertise,” equivalent to idiō- (lengthened variant of idio- idio-, perhaps by analogy with stratiōtēs “professional soldier,” derivative of stratiá “army”) + -tēs agent noun suffix
Explanation
An idiot is someone who does foolish things. If you take your little brother's dinosaur lunchbox to school instead of your own brown-bag lunch, you might feel like an idiot. But don't be too hard on yourself — we all make mistakes. The word idiot originated in the 1300s, from the Old French word idiote, which meant "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning." Today, though, idiot describes anyone who does foolish things, especially things that inconvenience others. If you put the Thanksgiving turkey in the oven but forget to turn it on, in four hours, you'll have a cold turkey and a bunch of relatives calling you an idiot.
Vocabulary lists containing idiot
Tricky Terms for April Fool's Day
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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.
"People understood very quickly that an idiot was driving and they fled."
From Barron's • May 4, 2026
“Governance issues. Keeping the cancellation to themselves for several days, CFO being an idiot and breaching NDA.”
From MarketWatch • Apr. 27, 2026
“I’ll be an idiot if I stay with them.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026
“I’ve changed a lot as a filmmaker, but I’m still the same idiot I’ve always been. That’s the bad news,” Iñárritu says laughing.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 23, 2026
Conner Lassiter, Audrey’s brother, shouted as he and his idiot friends, Doug Nolan and Teddy Chen, walked up the block.
From "Keep It Together, Keiko Carter" by Debbi Michiko Florence
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.
