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idiot |
3 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Idiot \Id"i*ot\, n. [F. idiot, L. idiota an uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed person, Gr ?, also and orig., a private person, not holding public office, fr ? 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; a natural; an innocent. 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. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: idiot n : a person of subnormal intelligence [syn: {imbecile}, {cretin}, {moron}, {changeling}, {half-wit}, {retard}] From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]: IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
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