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Idiot   /ˈɪdiət/   Listen
noun
Idiot  n.  
1.
A man in private station, as distinguished from one holding a public office. (Obs.) "St. Austin affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all laics, and all idiots or private persons."
2.
An unlearned, ignorant, or simple person, as distinguished from the educated; an ignoramus. (Obs.) "Christ was received of idiots, of the vulgar people, and of the simpler sort, while he was rejected, despised, and persecuted even to death by the high priests, lawyers, scribes, doctors, and rabbis."
3.
A human being destitute of the ordinary intellectual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth; a natural fool. In a former classification of mentally retarded people, idiot designated a person whose adult level of intelligence was equivalent to that of a three-year old or younger; this corresponded with an I.Q. level of approximately 25 or less. "Life... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
4.
A fool; a simpleton; a term of reproach. "Weenest thou make an idiot of our dame?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idiot" Quotes from Famous Books



... canoe, safe but senseless. Some tremendous peals of thunder, a roaring wind, and a scathing lightning confirmed his indisposition; and had not the tempest subsided, Popanilla would probably have been an idiot for life. The dead and soothing calm which succeeded this tornado called him back again gradually to existence. He opened his eyes, and, scarcely daring to try a sense, immediately shut them; then hearing a deep sigh, he shrugged ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... his producing "Hamlet" in preference to Mr. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern." Stevenson's "Macaire" may have all the literary quality that is claimed for it, although I personally think Stevenson was only making a delightful idiot of himself in it! Anyhow, it is frankly a burlesque, a skit, a satire on the real "Macaire." The Lyceum was not a burlesque house! Why should Henry ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... same conclusion. Mignon La Salle was also possessed of "the seeing eye." Mary was no longer her devoted satellite, although she still kept up an indifferent kind of friendship with the French girl. Mignon soon divined the cause of her lagging allegiance. "You are a little idiot, Mary Raymond, to follow Marjorie Dean about as you do. She doesn't care a snap for you. She may treat you nicely, but that's as far as it goes. She cares more for that miserable Stevens girl in a minute than she cares for you in a whole year. Why can't you let her alone and chum with ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... "As for this idiot here, I am going to give her to an ex-secret judge, at present a smuggler in the Pyrenees at Oleron. He can do what he pleases with her—make her a servant in his posada, for instance. I care not, so that my ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... Then she glanced at her wrist watch. "Will you see if my car is waiting!" she asked. "I had him take the nurse and baby up to the Park—and he ought to be back by now, I think." But as Dwight went to the telephone, she added excitedly to herself, "Now if that idiot of a chauffeur is as late as I told him to be, you and I will have quite a ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole


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