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
- idiotic adjective
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
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.
Bardot had asked to be buried at her Riviera home at La Madrague, rather than in a public cemetery, where she feared "a crowd of idiots might damage the graves of my parents and grandparents".
From BBC
“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote.
From Los Angeles Times
On Friday he took to social media to criticize “the usual idiots misinterpreting a Post article on Mets payroll.”
From Los Angeles Times
“But do you know what these idiots did?” she laughs.
From Salon
Now, most anyone who helped themselves to an extra Thanksgiving serving of Big Tech probably feels like a useful idiot.
From Barron's
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.
