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idiot
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
idiot
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a complete fool/idiot etc
▪ Meg realized she’d been a complete fool.
play the idiot/the teacher etc
▪ Susan felt she had to play the good wife.
village idiot
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪ He can either be a hero or the biggest idiot in the world.
▪ Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
▪ Sly was not this big an idiot.
▪ Ben Wright is also a big fat idiot.
▪ Anna You're a big idiot.
▪ A big idiot is what they'd say.
bloody
▪ If you couldn't handle your booze then you were a bloody idiot to drink and drive, that was not negotiable.
▪ I am the sinner or the bloody idiot.
▪ It was all your fault, you bloody idiot.
▪ I was a bloody idiot to think that that had anything to do with it.
complete
▪ Spike looked at her as if she was a complete idiot.
▪ And like complete idiots, we yearned for a close look.
▪ Afterwards I had my myocardial infarction in my office, feeling a complete idiot.
▪ He felt a complete idiot for having misjudged the moment so badly.
▪ He made a complete idiot of himself over that, and I swear it wasn't done deliberately.
▪ Then he began to feel a complete idiot.
▪ I developed a pretty good ear, although I started out as a complete idiot.
▪ But please, Mama, Lucinda pleaded silently, don't treat me like a complete idiot.
■ NOUN
village
▪ Then old man Grierson treats me like the village idiot.
▪ The ladies were patient, as no doubt they always are with village idiots.
▪ Pharaon is to all intents and purposes a simpleton, a virtual village idiot.
■ VERB
feel
▪ I felt a right idiot, being carried out on a stretcher, everybody gawping at me.
▪ It made me feel like an idiot.
▪ I felt an idiot, blacking out like that.
▪ But he felt like an idiot, a golf impostor.
▪ Afterwards I had my myocardial infarction in my office, feeling a complete idiot.
▪ For about 20 minutes I waved this damn thing and felt like a total idiot.
▪ He felt a complete idiot for having misjudged the moment so badly.
▪ Petey felt like an idiot again.
look
▪ I could look a real idiot if I don't use it.
▪ That made him look like an idiot.
▪ Anything but a lucky accident might well make him look an idiot.
▪ Teachers ran the risk of looking like idiots or liars.
play
▪ Alain was played as an idiot who hardly danced at all except to full over his own feet.
think
▪ You think he's an idiot, because he gets things wrong-the background, the politics, Walter, us.
▪ Nobody, of course, thought Switzer was an idiot for accepting such a prestigious and well-paying job.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a prize idiot/fool
blithering idiot
▪ Today provides a more immediate issue- the final opportunity for cricket to show it's not administered entirely by blithering idiots.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Stop treating me like an idiot -- I can count you know!
▪ Whenever I phone the bank I get through to some idiot who sounds about twelve years old.
▪ You idiot! What did you do that for?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But then, like an idiot, I go down.
▪ I fear he is truly an idiot.
▪ I must have managed an expression half way between a brave smile and the grin of an idiot.
▪ I would be an idiot to recommend it to the leader.
▪ If you couldn't handle your booze then you were a bloody idiot to drink and drive, that was not negotiable.
▪ Only a very disinterested idiot could miss, and be unimpressed by, either.
▪ You think he's an idiot, because he gets things wrong-the background, the politics, Walter, us.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Idiot

Idiot \Id"i*ot\ ([i^]d"[i^]*[o^]t), n. [F. idiot, L. idiota an uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed person, Gr. 'idiw`ths, also and orig., a private person, not holding public office, fr. 'i`dios proper, peculiar. See Idiom.]

  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.
    --Jer. Taylor.

  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.
    --C. Blount.

  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.
    --Shak.

  4. A fool; a simpleton; -- a term of reproach.

    Weenest thou make an idiot of our dame?
    --Chaucer.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
idiot

early 14c., "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning;" also in Middle English "simple man, uneducated person, layman" (late 14c.), from Old French idiote "uneducated or ignorant person" (12c.), from Latin idiota "ordinary person, layman; outsider," in Late Latin "uneducated or ignorant person," from Greek idiotes "layman, person lacking professional skill" (opposed to writer, soldier, skilled workman), literally "private person (as opposed to one taking part in public affairs)," used patronizingly for "ignorant person," from idios "one's own" (see idiom).Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. [Mark Twain, c.1882] Idiot box "television set" is from 1959; idiot light "dashboard warning signal" is attested from 1968. Idiot savant attested by 1870.

Wiktionary
idiot

n. 1 (context pejorative English) A person of low general intelligence. 2 (context obsolete medicine psychology English) A person who lacks the capacity to develop beyond the mental age of a normal four-year-old.

WordNet
idiot

n. a person of subnormal intelligence [syn: imbecile, cretin, moron, changeling, half-wit, retard]

Wikipedia
Idiot (2002 film)

Idiot is a Telugu film which released on 22 August 2002 and was directed by Puri Jagannadh. This film stars Ravi Teja and Rakshita. This film was a big hit in 2002 . It was later remade in Tamil as Dum in 2003, starring Silambarasan, with Rakshitha reprising her role in all 3 movies. It was also remade in Bengali as Hero and in Bangladeshi Bengali as Priya Amar Priya.

Idiot (1992 film)

Idiot is a 1992 Hindi film based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, The Idiot. It was directed by Mani Kaul and starred Shah Rukh Khan and Ayub Khan-Din. The film debuted at the New York Film Festival in October 1992. In this version of the tale, placed in contemporary Mumbai, Prince Miskin (Khan-Din) is a man whose epilepsy is mistaken for idiocy.

Idiot

An idiot, dolt, dullard or (archaically) mome is a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way. Along with the similar terms moron, imbecile, and cretin, the word archaically referred to the intellectually disabled, but have all since gained specialized meanings in modern times. An idiot is said to be idiotic, and to suffer from idiocy. A dunce is an idiot who is specifically incapable of learning. An idiot differs from a fool (who is unwise) and an ignoramus (who is uneducated/ignorant), neither of which refers to someone with low intelligence. In modern English usage, the terms "idiot" and "idiocy" describe an extreme folly or stupidity, and its symptoms (foolish or stupid utterance or deed). In psychology, it is a historical term for the state or condition now called profound intellectual disability.

Idiot (disambiguation)

Idiot refers to a mentally deficient person.

Idiot may also refer to:

  • Idiot (Athenian democracy), a natural self-centered ignorance, as opposed to citizenship
  • Idiot (1992 film), a film by Mani Kaul
  • Idiot (2002 film), a film by Puri Jagannadh
  • Idiot (2012 film), a film by Rajib Biswas
  • Idiots (film), a 2012 film by K. S. Bava
Idiot (2012 film)

Idiot is a 2012 Bengali film directed by Rajib Biswas starring Ankush Hazra and Srabanti Chatterjee in lead roles . This is a remake of 2006 Tamil language comedy film Thiruvilaiyaadal Aarambam, it is also made in Bangladesh in the year 2014 as Daring Lover. The film is a Super Hit.

Usage examples of "idiot".

He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws.

Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute--players.

August, after that idiot from Anchorage tried to taxi through the wall.

Those idiots in the Avion government blamed the whole mess on the Chief of Security and his Kin-sha unit.

Idiot, with a look of surprise on his face, which seemed to indicate that in his opinion the Bibliomaniac was very dull-witted not to have solved the problem for himself.

Might not this idiot of a Bunning have been shown the way to the mystery?

She had the pleasure of seeing her bank broken at the first deal, and indeed this result was to be expected, as anybody not an absolute idiot could see how the cards were going.

Yes, smiles break out all around as we cast daddies, brothers, husbands into near-respectable village idiots in the stories we spin over bowls of homegrown, freshly snapped peas, clotheslines draped with bleach-scented, bloodstained damp sheets, sinks filled with suds and supper-crusted dishes.

I knew it was forged, but two days later it dawned on me that the idiot was right.

She, in her turn, had a great dread of passing for an idiot if she did not shew her appreciation of, and her resentment for, his conduct.

Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided even then over the place--Captain William Dobbin did not take the slightest notice.

Could the youth be a man who would let a doddard idiot rob him of the girl he loved?

He could hardly have avoided learning of it for a succession of officers came to the ammunition park to give Sharpe their con dolences and to complain that an army which persecuted a man for killing the enemy must be an army led by idiots and administered by fools.

From the crowd came mutters to the effect that there were worse things than setting tables and doing idiot dances for a living, but the men around the table, several of whom had sat there when Dungy was their chief, frowned doubtfully, as though wondering whether capturing this man would be worth the risk.

The epoxy that we had too much of because some idiot computer clerk sent it instead of fruit.