"idiot savant" meaning in English

See idiot savant in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: idiots savants [plural], idiot savants [plural]
Etymology: From French idiot savant, literally ‘wise idiot’. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*seh₁p-}}, {{bor|en|fr|idiot savant}} French idiot savant Head templates: {{en-noun|idiots savants|s}} idiot savant (plural idiots savants or idiot savants)
  1. (possibly derogatory) A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains. Tags: derogatory, possibly Categories (topical): People, Stock characters Synonyms: autistic savant

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for idiot savant meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*seh₁p-"
      },
      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fr",
        "3": "idiot savant"
      },
      "expansion": "French idiot savant",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From French idiot savant, literally ‘wise idiot’.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "idiots savants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "idiot savants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "idiots savants",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "idiot savant (plural idiots savants or idiot savants)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English oxymorons",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Stock characters",
          "orig": "en:Stock characters",
          "parents": [
            "Fictional characters",
            "Fiction",
            "Artistic works",
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus off-key, 10 May 2014, p. R27]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)",
          "text": "The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains."
      ],
      "id": "en-idiot_savant-en-noun-7~TrkXEN",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "extraordinary",
          "extraordinary"
        ],
        [
          "ability",
          "ability"
        ],
        [
          "mathematics",
          "mathematics"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(possibly derogatory) A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "autistic savant"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "possibly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "idiot savant"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*seh₁p-"
      },
      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fr",
        "3": "idiot savant"
      },
      "expansion": "French idiot savant",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From French idiot savant, literally ‘wise idiot’.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "idiots savants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "idiot savants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "idiots savants",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "idiot savant (plural idiots savants or idiot savants)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English oxymorons",
        "English terms borrowed from French",
        "English terms derived from French",
        "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *seh₁p-",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:People",
        "en:Stock characters"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus off-key, 10 May 2014, p. R27]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)",
          "text": "The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "extraordinary",
          "extraordinary"
        ],
        [
          "ability",
          "ability"
        ],
        [
          "mathematics",
          "mathematics"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(possibly derogatory) A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "possibly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "autistic savant"
    }
  ],
  "word": "idiot savant"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.