Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Idiot

Id′i·ot (ĭd′ĭ·ŏt), n. [F. idiot, L. idiota an uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed person, Gr. ἰδιώτης, also and orig., a private person, not holding public office, fr. ἴδιος 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.