IDIOT, or IDYOT, in our laws, denotes a natural fool, or a fool from his birth. See IDIOTRY.
The word is originally Greek, idiōtēs, which primarily imports a private person, or one who leads a private life, without any share or concern in the government of affairs.
A person who has understanding enough to measure a yard of cloth, number twenty rightly, and tell the days of the week, &c. is not an idiot in the eye of the law. But a man who is born deaf, dumb, and blind, is considered by the law in the same state as an idiot.