idiot

American  

[id-ee-uht] / ˈɪd i ət /

noun

• idiots
  plural

1. 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!

   Synonyms:

   numbskull, dunce, dolt, imbecile, half-wit, fool

2. 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.

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idiot British  

/ ˈɪdɪət /

noun

1. a person with severe mental retardation

2. a foolish or senseless person

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• idiotic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• idiots
  plural

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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

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

idiot idiots

It might just sound like a new way to call someone an idiot, but the NPC label has much deeper, scarier implications.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026

No one—no reporter, operative, commentator, analyst, or person on the street—wants to look like an idiot by overhyping it again.

From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2026

"As the players themselves say, he's an idiot, but he's our idiot," said Saunders.

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026

"This isn't me and worse, this cheap imitation is a soulless idiot."

From Barron's ● Sep. 14, 2026

But he felt most like an idiot for asking Claire to join him and then ignoring her completely.

From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin

But Hull will go into this thinking if they can go back-to-back then what a start that is because they've been written off by idiots like myself.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

Hurd had been tennis buddies with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who publicly criticized HP’s decision as “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

I’m like, “Because we were idiots and didn’t think about it until now.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026

"We've both been conned, useful idiots, which is not a very nice way to put it, but we've been used," says Elma.

From BBC ● May 22, 2026

Not one of those idiots had the faintest idea that Cap’s donation came straight out of the budget for the Halloween dance.

From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman

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Related Words

• fool
• moron
• nitwit
• twit

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