ideot

English

Noun

ideot (plural ideots)

Obsolete form of idiot.
- 1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation; or, A New Praise of the Old Ass‎^[1], published 1815, page 59:
  No remedy; you must be dieted, and let blood in the Cephalica vein of asses, fools, dolts, ideots, dunces, dodipolles, and so forth infinitely; and never trust me, if you be not as tame-tongued, and barren-witted, as other honest men of Lombardy and the Low Countries.
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ix]:
  VVhat’s heere, the portrait of a blinking Ideot, / Preſenting me a ſedule?
- 1605, Michael Drayton, “The Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy”, in Poems: […], London: […] Willi[am] Stansby for Iohn Smethwicke, published 1630, →OCLC, page 355:
  She bags of Gold out of her boſome drevv, / VVhich ſhe to Sots and arrant Ideots threvv.
- 1721, Cotton Mather, diary entry for 16 July, 1721 in Diary of Cotton Mather, 1709-1724, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Seventh Series, Volume VIII, Boston: 1912, p. 632,^[2]
  The Destroyer, being enraged at the Proposal of any Thing, that may rescue the Lives of our poor People from him, has taken a strange Possession of the People on this Occasion. They rave, they rail, they blaspheme; they talk not only like Ideots but also like Franticks, […]
- 1633, A Banqvet of Jests: or, Change of Cheare. Being a collection, of Moderne Ieſts. Witty Ieeres. Pleaſant Taunts. Merry Tales. The Second Part newly publiſhed, page 30:
  A Noble-man tooke a great liking to a naturall, and had covenanted with his parents to take him from them and to keepe him for his pleaſure, and demanding of the Ideot if he would ſerve him, he made him this anſwere, My Father ſaith he, got me to be his foole of my mother, now if you long to have a foole; go & without doubt you may get one of your owne wife.
- 1768, John Cleland, The Woman of Honor, volume 3, page 96:
  Nor will you think this ſtrange, when I tell you, that, take him out of his rote of official buſtle, and the jargon of Change-alley, he had not an idea beyond that money-grubbing ſphere, and was ſcarce not a born ideot, with a head as contracted as his heart[.]
- 1782, William Cowper, “Conversation”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 257:
  So ſhould an ideot vvhile at large he ſtrays, / Find the ſvveet lyre on vvhich an artiſt plays, / VVith raſh and aukvvard force the chords he ſhakes, / And grins vvith vvonder at the jar he makes; […]

Middle English

Noun

ideot

Alternative form of ydiote