Everyday LifeGreek → English
Idiot
/ˈɪdiət/noun
A stupid person.
The Greek roots
ἰδιώτης
idiṓtēs
private person, layman
ἴδιος
ídios
one's own, private
Literally: “a man of his own affairs”
The story of the word
In Athens an ἰδιώτης was a man who kept to his own business and took no part in public life, the opposite of the πολίτης. The word carried contempt, because Athenians held public business to be everyone's business, but it meant amateur or layman rather than fool: Greek doctors called untrained patients ἰδιῶται. The slide into stupidity happened later, in Latin and French. The same ἴδιος gives idiom, a language's own way of saying a thing.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
idiomidiosyncrasyidiopathicidiolect
In a sentence
Some idiot had parked across both gates.
I felt like an idiot for asking twice.