Idiot Meaning
/ˈɪdiət/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA person of low general intelligence.
nounA person who makes stupid decisions; a fool.
Sentence Examples
Thanks for having explained to me at last why people take me for an idiot.
I will not be dictated to by some idiot in the personnel department.
You are an idiot to go out in this weather.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Only an ____ would jump off a cliff without checking for water below.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please don't be an ____ and try to cross the street without first looking both ways.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English idiote, ydiote, from Old French idiote (later idiot), from Latin idiota, from Ancient Greek ἰδιώτης (idiṓtēs, “a private citizen, one who has no professional knowledge, layman”), from ἴδιος (ídios, “one's own, pertaining to oneself, private”). Doublet of idiota. By surface analysis, idi- + -ot.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"“He’s an idiot – in terms of saying that. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows it. Nobody doubts it,” Biden said."
— 2019 October 28, Devan Cole, “Biden calls Trump an ‘idiot’ for dismissing Russian election interference”, in CNN:
"“One of the things that you write so beautifully, and your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump, quote, ‘The way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things,’” Kennedy said, reading Taibbi’s own writing back to him."
— 2024 November 21, Andrew Kaczynski, “RFK Jr. compared Trump to Hitler and praised descriptions of his supporters as ‘Nazis’”, in CNN:
"Idiots were thought to be peculiarly under the care of the Deity, and it was believed that those who treated them kindly would be blessed."
— 1896, Clifton Johnson, “Folks”, in What They Say in New England (non-fiction), Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Lee and Shepard Publishers, page 105:
"It is an offence for a man to have unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman whom he knows to be an idiot or imbecile."
— 1956, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 7”, in Sexual Offences Act 1956, page 2:
"In his moronic book, _The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design_ (2004), 334pp., the IDiot William Dembski writes on page 305 about how a fellow IDiot was fired from a research position at a "prestigious molecular biology laboratory" the very same day a press story appeared exposing this character as being an IDiot."
— 2004 March 12, David Ford, “Re: How is this for an ID lesson plan?”, in talk.origins (Usenet), message-ID :
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Only an ____ would jump off a cliff without checking for water below.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please don't be an ____ and try to cross the street without first looking both ways.