idiot savant
idiot savant noun: a person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) while being intellectually disabled in many other domains.
Noun
idiot savant (plural idiots savants or idiot savants)
- A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) while being intellectually disabled in many other domains.
- The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus...
- Synonyms:
- autistic savant
Synonyms of idiot savant
Forms of idiot savant
| plural | idiots savants |
|---|---|
| plural | idiot savants |
Origin of idiot savant
From French idiot savant, literally ‘wise idiot’.
Questions about idiot savant
- What does idiot savant mean?
- Idiot savant means a person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) while being intellectually disabled in many other domains.
- What part of speech is idiot savant?
- Idiot savant is a noun.
- What is the plural of idiot savant?
- The plural of idiot savant is idiots savants.
Words near idiot savant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: idiot savant (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)-Flame, not lame-idiot savant.wav.
Cite this entry: “idiot savant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/idiot_savant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.