idiocy

English

Alternative forms

• idiotcy (archaic)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪdiəsi/
• (US) IPA^(key): [ˈɪɾiəsi]

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

idiocy (countable and uncountable, plural idiocies)

1. (dated, psychology, now derogatory) The state or condition of being an idiot; the quality of having an intelligence level far below average.

   Synonyms: idioticness, imbecility, moronicity (all archaic in this sense); mental retardation (now deprecated in medical usage); intellectual disability (current medical terminology)

2. (uncountable) Lack of intelligence or sense; extremely foolish behaviour.

   Synonyms: idioticness, imbecility, moronicity; see also Thesaurus:intelligence § Antonyms

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

3. (countable) An idiotic act or utterance.

   The list of his idiocies is seemingly interminable.

   • 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:

     “Well, Atticus, I was just sayin‘ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time sometimes… that you all’d ride it out together…” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed.

Synonyms

• idiocity (nonstandard)
• idiotacy (nonstandard)
• idiotcy (dated)
• idiotery (nonstandard, rare)
• idioticalness (rare)
• idioticity (nonstandard)
• idioticness (rare)
• idioticy (nonstandard)
• idiotism
• idiotness (rare)
• idiotry (obsolete)

Derived terms

• artificial idiocy
• covidiocy
• Mongolian idiocy

Related terms

• idiocracy
• idiot
• idiotic
• idiotically

Translations

state of being an idiot

• Bulgarian: идиотия f (idiotija)
• Catalan: idiòcia f, estupidesa (ca) f
• Chichewa: utsiru
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 白痴 (zh) (báichī)

• Czech: idiocie (cs) f
• Danish: idioti
• Esperanto: idioteco
• Finnish: tylsämielisyys (fi), idiotia, idioottimaisuus (fi)
• French: idiotie (fr) f
• German: Idiotie (de) f
• Greek: ηλιθιότητα (el) f (ilithiótita), ιδιωτεία (el) f (idioteía)
• Italian: stupidità (it) f
• Manx: meecheealaght f, meecheeallid m, ommidys m
• Occitan: idiocia f
• Polish: idiotyzm (pl) m inan
• Portuguese: idiotice (pt) f, estupidez (pt) f
• Russian: идиоти́зм (ru) m (idiotízm), идио́тство (ru) n (idiótstvo)
• Spanish: idiotez (es) f, estupidez (es) f
• Tagalog: kaungasan
• Ukrainian: ідіоти́зм m (idiotýzm)
• Volapük: diot (vo)

extremely foolish behaviour

• Bulgarian: идиотщина (bg) f (idiotština)
• Middle English: sotie, sotschipe
• Polish: idiotyzm (pl) m inan
• Ukrainian: ідіоти́зм m (idiotýzm)

References

• “idiocy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• dioicy