idiot

Founding-era definition · Webster's 1828 American Dictionary

ID'IOT, noun [Latin idiota; Gr. private, vulgar, unskilled, peculiar, that is, separate, simple. See Idiom.] 1. A natural fool or fool from his birth; a human being in form, but destitute of reason, or the ordinary intellectual powers of man. A person who has understanding enough to measure a yard of cloth, number twenty correctly, tell the days of the week, etc., is not an idiot in the eye of the law. 2. A foolish person; one unwise.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI

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