or Idiot, in our laws, denotes a natural fool, or a fool from his birth. See Idiocy.

The word is originally Greek, ἰδιώτης, 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.

Idiot is also used, by ancient writers, for a person ignorant or unlearned; answering to illiteratus or imperitus. In this sense, Victor tells us, in his Chronicon, that in the consulship of Melfala, the Holy Gospels, by command of the emperor Anastasius, were corrected and amended, as having been written by idiot evangelists: Tanguam ab idioticis evangelistis compotita.