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“idiot”
1. An offensive term that deliberately insults someone else's intelligence: Mike's friend was considered an idiot by the other ten members, who were working on the project, because he was the only one who would not agree with how to complete the last phase.
2. Etymology: from Greek idios, "one’s own" or "private".
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2. Etymology: from Greek idios, "one’s own" or "private".
The Greek idiotes was simply "a person who was not in the public eye or who held no public office" and was borrowed from Greek into Latin as idiota, then into French as idiote.
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so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.
savant, idiot savant, idiot
savant (sa VAHNT) (noun)
1. A learned person or someone who knows a great amount about a particular subject: Rhonda is really a computer savant because she is an excellent authority regarding computers.
2. Someone who does not have normal intelligence but who has a very unusual mental ability that other people do not have: Michael had poor reading skills; however, he was considered a savant because he could do unbelievable things with numbers and he had a fantastic memory of historical facts.
2. Someone who does not have normal intelligence but who has a very unusual mental ability that other people do not have: Michael had poor reading skills; however, he was considered a savant because he could do unbelievable things with numbers and he had a fantastic memory of historical facts.
Savant is now the preferred term for "idiot savant" and is recommended as the word which should be used instead.
idiot savant (ID ee uht sa VAHNT) (noun)
An intellectually disabled person who exhibits extraordinary ability in a highly specialized area; such as, mathematics or music: Idiot savant is no longer considered an acceptable term and "savant" is now the preferred reference for this definition.
idiot (ID ee uht) (noun)
A foolish or stupid person: Kyle felt that he really made an idiot of himself at the dinner table the other night by asking the hostess an embarrassing question by mistake!
An idiot driver kept trying to pass Joel on the narrow road the other night while he was going at the speed limit while other cars were coming from the opposite direction.
Anita, a famed psychologist and a renowned savant in the field of child psychology, gave a lecture in which she emphasized the negative implications of the use of the term idiot savant and the even more frequent use of idiot.
This entry is located in the following unit:
Confusing Words Clarified: Group S; Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs, Synonyms, Polysemes, etc. +
(page 2)
(formerly termed idiot savants)
Word Entries containing the term:
“idiot”
idiot board
A placard, projector, or continuous roll of paper that prompts a television performer with lines to be spoken.
idiot box
Slang for a television or a television set.