Other forms: cretins
Cretin is an insult meaning an idiot. It is blunt, old-fashioned, and worth handling carefully.
The reason for the care is its history: cretin began as a medical term for a person with severe developmental problems caused by a lack of iodine, a condition now called congenital hypothyroidism and largely prevented by iodised salt. Using a diagnosis as an insult is exactly what makes the word offensive, and it is best understood rather than used. You will meet it in older novels and in angry dialogue. The adjective cretinous carries the same charge.
1nouncretinA stupid person, used as an offensive insult.
“He called the driver a cretin and drove off.”
Also accepted in games: moron
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰrey-
Latin
christiānus
French
crétin — cretin, idiot
English, today
cretin
From French crétin (“cretin, idiot”), likely from crestin, an Alpine dialectal form of chrétien, from Latin christiānus in the lost sense of “anyone in Christendom”, often with a sense of “poor fellow”. a doublet of Christian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word