fool

fool, idiot, imbecile, moron, simpleton, natural are often used popularly and interchangeably of one regarded as lacking sense or good judgment but each can be more precisely applied to someone mentally deficient in a given degree.

Fool, the most general, can apply to anyone mentally deranged as well as mentally deficient, implying lack or loss of reason or intelligence; it may be used as an extremely offensive term of contempt

{

fools rush in where angels fear to tread— Pope

}

{

he was a fool and liable, as such, under the stress of bodily or mental disturbance, to spasmodic fits of abject fright which he mistook for religion— Norman Douglas

}

{

I was a. fool, if you like, and certainly I was going to do a foolish, overbold act— Stevenson

}

{

act like a fool

}

Idiot, imbecile, and moron are technical designations for one mentally deficient.

An idiot is incapable of connected speech or of avoiding the common dangers of life and needs constant attendance.

An imbecile is incapable of earning a living but can be educated to attend to simple wants or avoid most ordinary dangers.

A moron can learn a simple trade but requires constant supervision in his work or recreation. In more general and nontechnical use idiot implies utter feeblemindedness, imbecile implies half-wittedness, and moron implies general stupidity

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comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers— Millay

}

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actually there never is a status quo, except in the minds of political imbeciles— Henry Miller

}

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even morons get college degrees— Warfel

}

All three, however, may imply no more than often mild derogation or disapprobation of a person or his conduct

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got a little high at the reunion and made a complete idiot of himself

}

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how could he have been such a careless imbecile as to mislay his manuscript?— Mackenzie

}

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the telephone call was a fake . . . and Peeps climbed up into the guard chair, mumbling about the brains of certain morons— Boys' Life

}

Simpleton, a term of indulgent contempt, implies silliness or lack of sophistication

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a sweet-natured simpleton who wrote lovely songs for children— Damon

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in spite of her experience of his lying, she had never suspected that that particular statement was a lie. What a simpleton she was!— Bennett

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Natural, which persists chiefly in historical context, may designate any con- genitally feebleminded person

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the man is not a natural; he has a very quick sense, though very slow understanding— Steele

}

{

with the vacant grin of a natural— Charles Gibbon

}