Idiocy

//ˈɪdiəsi// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state or condition of being an idiot; the quality of having an intelligence level far below average. countable, dated, derogatory, uncountable
  2. 2
    extreme mental retardation wordnet
  3. 3
    Lack of intelligence or sense; extremely foolish behaviour. uncountable

    "The administrators, growing tired of such idiocy, put a new policy in place."

  4. 4
    An idiotic act or utterance. countable

    "The list of his idiocies is seemingly interminable."

Synonyms

All synonyms
imbecilitystupidityidioticness;imbecilitymoronicity

Example

More examples

"Every time a failure like that occurs in another department, I'm tempted to call them idiots, but then people like you come along to demonstrate what true idiocy looks like."

Etymology

From French idiotie, from Old French idiot. Displaced earlier idiotacy, idiotry. Equivalent to idiot + -cy. By surface analysis, idio- + -cy.

Related phrases

Mongolian idiocyartificial idiocy

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.