Noun: idiot
| Singular | idiot |
| Plural | idiots |
Sample Sentences
-
Only an idiot would fail this exam.
-
After failing a hat-trick of exams, the teacher called him an idiot.
-
He thought people who don't like cricket are idiots. He later got into fights with people who like football.
-
We think that people who cycle without a helmet are idiots.
-
“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:]
Nouns inflected like idiot
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
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. See: Middle English Nouns '
idiote', Latin Nouns '
idiota', Ancient Greek Nouns '
ἰδιώτης'.
Verbs referencing "idiot"
Finnish Nouns
idiootti.