Other forms: idiots
An idiot is somebody who behaves very stupidly. An absolute idiot, feel like an idiot, the idiot in front.
It is a common and fairly mild insult in British speech, applied as often to yourself as to others. It has a heavy history: idiot was a clinical classification of intellectual disability into the twentieth century, alongside imbecile and moron, and all three left medicine for the playground. Note idiotic; and that the Greek meant a private person taking no part in public life.
1nounidiotSomebody who behaves very stupidly.
“Some idiot parked across our driveway, so I couldn't get the car out.”
idiot is a foolish person.
Also accepted in games: blockhead
Greek idiotes meant a private citizen, from idios, one's own. It came to mean a layman, then an ignorant person, then a fool — a fall driven by contempt for those outside public life.
Middle English
ydiote
English, today
idiot
Built from
From Middle English ydiote. From Middle English idiote, ydiote, from Old French idiote (later idiot), from Latin idiota, from Ancient Greek ἰδιώτης (“a private citizen, one who has no professional knowledge, layman”), from ἴδιος (“one's own, pertaining to oneself, private”). a doublet of idiota. by surface analysis, idi- + -ot.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA