| / English Dictionary |
IDIOT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A person of subnormal intelligence
Synonyms:
changeling; cretin; half-wit; idiot; imbecile; moron; retard
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("idiot" is a kind of...):
simple; simpleton (a person lacking intelligence or common sense)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "idiot"):
mongoloid (a person suffering from Down syndrome (no longer used technically in this sense, now considered offensive))
Derivation:
idiotic (having a mental age of three to seven years)
Context examples:
There was a younger brother, too—a complete dumb idiot.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:—That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
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