Who is an idiot? This word can often be heard in everyday life. Almost everyone knows that it has a negative character and is used as an insult, but not everyone knows its true meaning. We can assume that you most likely also belong to the number of such people. If so, then welcome! Especially for you, we wrote a publication that details the meaning of the word "idiot". We recommend reading to the end so as not to miss anything important!
Who are the idiots? Meaning of the word
The explanatory dictionaries of Ozhegov and Efremova give the following definitions of the word "idiot":
- An idiot is a person who does not have a high level of intelligence, a fool. As a rule, it is used as an insult to humiliate an opponent and indicate his stupidity.
- An idiot is a person who is sick with idiocy.
Idiocy
Discussing the meaning of the word "idiot", one can not say a few words about idiocy.
Many people scattering the word "idiot" left and right do not even realize how offensive and inappropriate it can be. The fact is that idiocy is a serious disease. This is the name of the congenital form of dementia, which is expressed in the complete destruction of the normal mental activity of a person.
Idiot: what did this word mean millennia ago?
As we said earlier, now the word "idiot" has two meanings: abusive and medical. However, initially the word Idiōtēs had a completely different meaning. Translated from ancient Greek, it meant only a person who is not interested in politics. Due to negative associations, the word "idiot" over time has taken on the meaning that today is the most common.
In more detail the answer to the question "who are the idiots in ancient Greece?" described in the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary:
"The word idiot originally meant a separate person as opposed to the state. In ancient Greece, idiots were often called those who did not participate in state affairs, that is, on the one hand, a private person as opposed to a statesman, on the other hand, an ignoramus and layman as opposed to smart to an initiate, an uneducated person as opposed to an educated one.The ancient Romans put a similar meaning into this word: in their interpretation, an idiot is an inexperienced, uneducated person who has nothing understands in art and science. "
"Idiot" by Fedor Dostoevsky
Since we are writing an article about who the idiot is, it would be inexcusable for us not to write about the novel of the same name by the famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fedor Mikhailovich created this work from 1867 to 1869. Initially, it was conceived as a continuation of another famous Dostoevsky novel - Crime and Punishment.
“Idiot” is the second novel of the so-called “Great Pentateuch of Dostoevsky”, which also includes the works “Crime and Punishment”, “Demons”, “The Player” and “The Brothers Karamazov”.
The novel "Idiot" Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote abroad, where he went to heal a little. With the money that he was supposed to give for writing a novel, he wanted to pay off loans. Work on the work was difficult: Dostoevsky’s health did not improve, and in 1868 his three-month-old daughter died in Geneva.
When Fyodor Mikhailovich lived in Germany and Switzerland, he reflected on the moral and socio-political changes in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century: revolutionary moods, circles of raznochintsy, ideas of nihilists - all this somehow influenced his new novel.
For Dostoevsky there was only one ideal - that is Jesus Christ. Those features that the Savior possessed, he tried to give the main character of the novel - Prince Myshkin.
According to Fedorov Mikhailovich, Don Quixote is closest to the ideal of Christ in fiction. The image of Prince Myshkin echoes in many respects the main character of the work of Cervantes. Like the author of Don Quixote, Dostoevsky asks himself: what will happen to a person endowed with the qualities of a saint if he falls into our time, what will be his relationship with those around him and how will he influence them, and they will affect him?
Who is an idiot? We think we were able to answer this question. We hope that our article was interesting to you and you learned a lot of interesting information!