Word.ws English Dictionary

cretin

/ˈkɹɛtɪn//ˈkɹiːtɪn/

cretin noun: a person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.

Noun

cretin (plural cretins)

  1. (archaic) A person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.
  2. (broadly, derogatory) An idiot.
    • When I challenged the symbolism, tried to make the professor consider the book as a piece of realism, he regarded me as if I were an absolute cretin. He got very supercilious and condescending […]1969, Irving Wallace, The Seven Minutes

Proper noun capitalized: Cretin

Cretin

  1. A surname.

cretin meaning in Tamil

cretin in Tamil

குள்ளம், குறளன், குற்றுடலர், கூழையர்

Forms of cretin

pluralcretins

Origin of cretin

From French crétin (“cretin, idiot”), likely from crestin, an Alpine dialectal form of chrétien, from Latin christiānus in the lost sense of “anyone in Christendom”, often with a sense of “poor fellow”. Doublet of Christian.

Words formed from cretin

Words that rhyme with cretin

Questions about cretin

What does cretin mean?
Cretin means a person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.
What is cretin in Tamil?
Cretin in Tamil is குள்ளம், குறளன், குற்றுடலர். See Cretin meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cretin?
Cretin can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cretin?
Cretin is pronounced /ˈkɹɛtɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of cretin?
The plural of cretin is cretins.

Words near cretin in the dictionary

  1. cretifaction
  2. cretified
  3. cretifies
  4. cretify
  5. cretifying
  6. cretin
  7. cretinic
  8. cretinise
  9. cretinised
  10. cretinises
  11. cretinising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cretin (page history and authors); Cretin (page history and authors); cretin (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cretin.wav, En-us-cretin.oga.

Cite this entry: “cretin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cretin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.