nitwit

American  

[nit-wit] / ˈnɪtˌwɪt /

noun

1. a slow-witted, stupid, or foolish person.

   Synonyms:

   booby, dunce, dolt, blockhead, fool

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nitwit British  

/ ˈnɪtˌwɪt /

noun

1. informal a foolish person

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Etymology

Origin of nitwit

First recorded in 1920–25; nit (from German; dialectal variant of nicht “not”) + wit ¹ (in the sense of “intelligence”)

Explanation

A nitwit is a foolish person. If you bake a cake and stir a cup of salt into the batter instead of sugar, your brother will probably call you a nitwit. It's not nice to call someone a nitwit, but it's hard to resist when people do things that are outrageously incompetent or ridiculous. It's pretty common to refer to entire groups of people as nitwits, like politicians or fans of a rival sports team. The word comes from nit, "nothing" in dialectical Yiddish, and wit, "sense or intelligence."

Example Sentences

And I became a gunslinging nitwit in what was the last really crazy, silly stock market before the internet era.

From Barron's • Dec. 31, 2025

“Some nitwit wants to know what I think of Cameroon going into the Southeastern Conference.”

From Golf Digest • Apr. 28, 2020

I’ve never met Ryan-Mark, so this isn’t rooted in fact, but I suspect that – since he knowingly signed up for this, despite everything – he might be a nitwit.

From The Guardian • Oct. 2, 2019

In movies, Sandler has gone from playing nitwit kids to easily bruised, often overwhelmed dads in “The Week Of” and the “Hotel Transylvania” franchise.

From New York Times • Oct. 24, 2018

Then he shrugged as if he were saying, “What can you do with a nitwit like that?”

From "Homesick" by Jean Fritz