# idiot

Pronunciation: say "I-dee-uht" /ˈɪdiət/

## Noun

1. A stupid or foolish person, or one who acts without sense.
   - Simple: A very stupid person, or someone who does something very silly.
   - _Whoever approved that budget without checking the figures is an idiot._
   - _She called him an idiot for putting all his savings into one risky stock._

## Adjective

2. Foolish or stupid in nature. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Very silly or foolish.
   - _His idiot scheme to get rich quick fell apart within a week._
   - _They wasted hours on some idiot plan that never had a chance._

## Noun

3. In former medical classification, a person of the lowest grade of intellectual disability, judged unable to develop beyond the mental age of a toddler, with an IQ below about 25 to 30. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: In old medical use, a person thought to have the very lowest level of intelligence.

## Origin

Ancient Greek ídios meant "one's own, private," and from it came idiṓtēs, a private person or layman without professional knowledge. Latin took this as idiota, Old French as idiote (later idiot), and Middle English as idiote.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/idiot (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).