Idiotism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Very severe mental retardation. countable, historical, uncountable

    "He did not perceive that regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem […]"

  2. 2
    Idiom.
  3. 3
    A foolish utterance. countable, uncountable

    "[…] that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the bawl upon its lips."

  4. 4
    An overly literal translation of an idiom.

Synonyms

All synonyms
amentiaarrested developmentclauseconstructioncretinismexpression

Example

More examples

"He did not perceive that regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem […]"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From idiot + -ism.

Etymology 2

From Latin idiotismus.

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