pyramidiot

English

Etymology

Blend of pyramid +‎ idiot, influenced by -iot. Coined by archaeologist Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford in 1935.

Noun

pyramidiot (plural pyramidiots)

1. (derogatory) pyramidologist; one who believes prophecies are encoded in Egyptian pyramids.
   • 1935, Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford, Antiquity:

     It has been customary in some circles to dub them ' Pyramid-ites ', but after all ' Smyrniot ' and ' Cypriot ' are used for ' those of Smyrna ' and ' those of Cyprus ', so why not Pyramidiot ?

   • 1968, Elizabeth Peters, The jackal's head, Random House Business:

     If I started babbling about Nefertiti, they would shrug, shake their heads sadly, and write me off as some kind of pyramidiot. But if my wild tale were backed up by two responsible, respected professionals, Bloch would be in real trouble.

   • 1971, John David Wortham, British Egyptology, 1549-1906, David & Charles Publishers:

     Deverell was both a cultural diffusionist and a pyramidiot. He insisted that ancient Egypt had acquired its civilization from England, whose colony Egypt had been in ancient times.

   • 1979, Spit in the Ocean, Volume 1, Issues 5-6, page 126:

     Listen how a little of it looked: Wisely, somebody, probably Richard Loren, veteran Pyramidiot as well as promotor, chose to begin the first set with Hamza el-Din, an internationally famous master of the oud.

   • 1981, Reader's Digest Association, Into the unknown, Readers Digest, →ISBN:

     His manipulations of figures had enormous appeal and his books were read by thousands, but his conclusions were debunked by scholars, who called him a " pyramidiot."

   • 1994, Flora S. Clancy, Pyramids, Smithsonian Books, →ISBN:

     The roots of the pyramidologist or pyramidiot probably go back to the time the pyramids were built, but their flowering arrived with the antiquarians of the 19th century.