idiocy
(ˈɪdɪəsɪ)
Also 6 idiosy, 7 ideocy.
[Possibly ad. Gr. ἰδιωτεία uncouthness, want of education, f. ἰδιώτης idiot; but perh. formed analogically on idiot, without reference to the Greek, after other ns. in -cy from words in -t, as prophet, prophecy, etc. See also idiotcy. F. idiotie is recent.]
The state or condition of being an idiot; natural absence or marked deficiency of ordinary understanding; extreme mental imbecility.
| a 1529 Skelton Replyc. 250 Your madde ipocrisy, And your idiosy, And your vayne glory Haue made you eate the flye. 1607 Cowell Interpr., Idiota inquirenda..is a writ that is directed to the Excheator..to call before him the party suspected of Idiocie, and examin him. 1613 Sir H. Finch Law (1636) 95 The king shall haue to his owne vse..all the possessions of a foole naturall, not of any other Ideot during his ideocy. 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. viii. (1809) 306 When a man on an inquest of idiocy hath been returned an unthrift and not an idiot, no farther proceedings have been had. 1814 Scott Wav. ix, It was apparently neither idiocy nor insanity which gave that wild, unsettled, irregular expression to a face which naturally was rather handsome. 1874 H. Maudsley Respons. in Ment. Dis. iii. 66 Idiocy is a defect of mind which is either congenital, or due to causes operating during the first few years of life. |
b. Used humorously as a title.
| 1826 Scott Woodst. xxxiii, So please your idiocy, thou art an ass. |
† c. app. Ignorance. Obs.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. ii. Imposture 323 The suspected vertue of This Tree Shall soon disperse the cloud of Idiocy, Which dims your eyes. |
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Add: d. An instance of idiocy; a stupid or foolish action, remark, etc.
| 1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah Pref. p. ix, I habitually derided Neo-Darwinism as a ghastly idiocy. 1945 A. Huxley Time must have Stop xxiv. 226 That fool who believed in Gaseous Vertebrates, that creeping Jesus who tried to convert people to his own idiocies! 1968 Punch 11 Dec. 858/1 The idiocies of British holiday habits, which tend to waver between ‘slurping up the kilometres’ and getting away from it all amid insanitary souks. 1986 R. Sproat Stunning the Punters 183 Every aspect of public administration throws up its own idiocies. |