Word.ws English Dictionary

for dummies

for dummies adjective: intended for a lay audience, simplified.

Adjective

for dummies

  1. (colloquial, often) Intended for a lay audience, simplified.
    • It's still too complicated for me to understand. Can you give me the 'for dummies' version?

Origin of for dummies

From the For Dummies series of instructional reference books.

Questions about for dummies

What does for dummies mean?
For dummies means intended for a lay audience, simplified.
What part of speech is for dummies?
For dummies is an adjective.

Words near for dummies in the dictionary

  1. for cryin' out loud
  2. for crying in the beer
  3. for crying out loud
  4. for days
  5. for dear life
  6. for dummies
  7. for England
  8. for ever
  9. for ever and ever
  10. for ever more
  11. for evermore

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: for dummies (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.

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