idiotic

adjective

variants also idiotical
Definition of idioticnext
as in dumb
having or showing an inability to understand or make sensible choices He ended up making millions from an idea that many had dismissed as idiotic. I'm afraid I said some really idiotic things yesterday.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of idiotic Along for the ride is his fawning, idiotic buddy Stevie (Steve Little). — Jordan Hoffman, Entertainment Weekly, 8 June 2026 Covering politics today is a grim dance between the vicious and the idiotic, between repulsion and despair. — Megan McArdle, Washington Post, 10 May 2026 Red-Bodied Dog Tick Has your idiotic dog wandered onto a bucolic patch of grass that hasn’t been freshly treated with toxins? — Jay Ruttenberg, New Yorker, 8 June 2026 The biggest is Theroux’s overly tanned and idiotic tech billionaire Benji Barnes, who is dating Emily (Emily Blunt) after recently divorcing his cool wife Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu) and leaving her with billions. — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 4 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for idiotic
Recent Examples of Synonyms for idiotic
  1. dumb
  2. ridiculous
  3. irrational
  4. ignorant
  5. unreasonable
  6. unreasoning
Adjective
  • The State’s humor is an interesting mixture of extremely dumb and self-aware.
    — Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 5 July 2026
  • Mayhem comes to a coastal New England town in the form of a killer shark who hunts anybody dumb enough to get in the water.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 1 July 2026
Definition of dumb
Adjective
  • Houssem Aouar finally spied a gap in the Austrian defence and sent Mahrez through to score, sparking jubilation before Sasa Kalajdzic’s header confirmed a ridiculous ending to a game that was dramatic, bleak and then dramatic again.
    — Anantaajith Raghuraman, New York Times, 4 July 2026
  • This laptop can absolutely handle a ridiculous number of tabs.
    — Kelsey Fogarty, PC Magazine, 4 July 2026
Definition of ridiculous
Adjective
  • The reflex, from a distance, is to call this irrational.
    — Tyler Evans, Sun Sentinel, 28 June 2026
  • If people believe regulatory caution invalidates every legal claim, courts may look irrational.
    — Alex Smolak, STAT, 27 June 2026
Definition of irrational
Adjective
  • Let’s hope that George Santayana’s warning to those ignorant of history about the past repeating itself makes an exception for our present Defense Department.
    — Voice of the People, New York Daily News, 28 June 2026
  • And then there are amateur collectors like me, who might not know ironstone from porcelain, but whose last day on earth could be spent touching old objects in ignorant bliss.
    — Jessica Sulima, Condé Nast Traveler, 28 June 2026
Definition of ignorant
Adjective
  • If these requirements are not met, the search is unreasonable and therefore unlawful, and evidence obtained in that search cannot be used in court, barring a good-faith exception.
    — Anne Toomey McKenna, The Conversation, 30 June 2026
  • Justices ruled that sweeping use of cellphone data requires a warrant, a decision applying the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, to new technology.
    — Josh Feldman, NBC news, 30 June 2026
Definition of unreasonable
Adjective
  • Roosevelt surely understood that nameless, unreasoning, unjustified fear cannot be eradicated.
    — New York Times, New York Times, 9 June 2026
  • Bainbridge knew about secrets and unreasoning shame.
    — Christopher Tayler, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
Definition of unreasoning

Browse Nearby Words

idiot boxes
idiotic
idiotproof
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Idiotic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idiotic. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on idiotic

Nglish: Translation of idiotic for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List

One-Word Oxymorons: Bittersweet, Spendthrift, and More

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
hangman letters and game
Hangman Lightning Round Figure out which word fits in the blanks.
See All