Is stupidity a word

Asked by: Jaiden Hirthe

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noun, plural stu·pid·i·ties for 2. the state, quality, or fact of being stupid. a stupid act, notion, speech, etc.

What kind of word is stupidity?

adjective, stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question. tediously dull, especially due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.

What can I say instead of dumb?

Some common synonyms of dumb are crass, dense, dull, and stupid.

What is a fancy word for SAD?

pessimistic, melancholy, bitter, somber, dismal, wistful, heartbroken, sorry, sorrowful, mournful, dark, pathetic, regrettable, moving, bad, unhappy, depressing, poignant, tragic, serious.

What are the signs of stupidity?

Here are some clear signs that your colleagues do think you’re dumb:

15 related questions found

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, or wit. It may be innate, assumed or reactive. The word stupid comes from the Latin word stupere. Stupid characters are often used for comedy in fictional stories. Walter B. Pitkin called stupidity «evil», but in a more Romantic spirit William Blake and Carl Jung believed stupidity can be the mother of wisdom.

Etymology

The root word stupid,^[1] which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb stupere, for being numb or astonished, and is related to stupor.^[2] In Roman culture, the stupidus was the professional fall guy in the theatrical mimes.^[3]

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words «stupid» and «stupidity» entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with «fool,» «idiot,» «dumb,» «moron,» and related concepts as a pejorative for misdeeds, whether purposeful or accidental, due to absence of mental capacity.

Definition

Stupidity is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid.^[4] In a character study of «The Stupid Man» attributed to the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC), stupidity was defined as «mental slowness in speech or action». The modern English word «stupid» has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senseless, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either imply a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze, or slow-mindedness.

In Understanding Stupidity, James F. Welles defines stupidity this way: «The term may be used to designate a mentality which is considered to be informed, deliberate and maladaptive.» Welles distinguishes stupidity from ignorance; where stupidity means one must know they are acting in their own worst interest in that it must be a choice, not a forced act or accident. Lastly, it requires the activity to be maladaptive, in that it is in the worst interest of the actor, and specifically done to prevent adaption to new data or existing circumstances.»^[5]

Measurement

There are various tests to measure Intelligence quotient, as well tests that measure aptitude, such as the Marine Corps’ required General Classification Test (GCT), and the Army General Classification Test.

Researchers Michael Klein and Matthew Cancian have reported a declining aptitude among college educated applicants to the Marine Corps over the past 34 years, although this effect was not observed in the general enlisted population.^[6]

Researchers Michael J. McFarland, Matt E. Hauer, and Aaron Reuben report those born between 1951 and 1980 may have lost an average of 2.6 IQ points from exposure to leaded gasoline.^[7]

Playing stupid

Eric Berne described the game of «Stupid» as having «the thesis…’I laugh with you at my own clumsiness and stupidity.'»^[8] He points out that the player has the advantage of lowering other people’s expectations, and so evading responsibility and work; but that he or she may still come through under pressure, like the proverbially stupid younger son.^[9]

Wilfred Bion considered that psychological projection created a barrier against learning anything new, and thus its own form of pseudo-stupidity.^[10]

Intellectual stupidity

Otto Fenichel maintained that «quite a percentage of so-called feeble-mindedness turns out to be pseudo-debility, conditioned by inhibition … Every intellect begins to show weakness when affective motives are working against it».^[11] He suggests that «people become stupid ad hoc, that is, when they do not want to understand, where understanding would cause anxiety or guilt feeling, or would endanger an existing neurotic equilibrium.»^[12]

In rather different fashion, Doris Lessing argued that «there is no fool like an intellectual … a kind of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience.»^[13]

Persisting in folly

In the Romantic reaction to Enlightenment wisdom, a valorisation of the irrational, the foolish, and the stupid emerged, as in William Blake’s dictum that «if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise»;^[14] or Jung’s belief that «it requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never.»^[15]

Similarly, Michel Foucault argued for the necessity of stupidity to re-connect with what our articulate categories exclude, to recapture the alterity of difference.^[16]

Impact

In his book A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity (1932), Walter B. Pitkin warns about the impact of stupid people:

Stupidity can easily be proved the supreme Social Evil. Three factors combine to establish it as such. First and foremost, the number of stupid people is legion. Secondly, most of the power in business, finance, diplomacy and politics is in the hands of more or less stupid individuals. Finally, high abilities are often linked with serious stupidity.^[17]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer indicated stupidity to be «a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil» because there is no defense: «Neither protest nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved.»^[18] The great danger of stupidity manifests itself when it affects larger groups. In a larger group, «the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil».^[18]

According to Carlo Cipolla the efforts of stupid people are counterproductive to their own and other’s interest. He maintains that reasonable people cannot imagine or understand unreasonable behavior making stupid people dangerous and damaging, even potentially more dangerous than a «bandit» whose action at least has a rational goal, namely his benefit.^[19]

In culture

In comedy

The fool or buffoon has been a central character in much comedy. Alford and Alford found that humor based on stupidity was prevalent in «more complex» societies as compared to some other forms of humor.^[20] Some analysis of Shakespeare’s comedy has found that his characters tend to hold mutually contradictory positions; because this implies a lack of careful analysis it indicates stupidity on their part.^[21]

Today there is a wide array of television shows that showcase stupidity such as The Simpsons.^[22] Goofball comedy is a class of naive, zany humour typified by actor Leslie Nielsen.^[23][24]

In film

Stupidity was a 2003 movie directed by Albert Nerenberg.^[25] It depicted examples and analyses of stupidity in modern society and media, and sought «to explore the prospect that willful ignorance has increasingly become a strategy for success in the realms of politics and entertainment.»^[26]

Idiocracy, a Mike Judge film from 2006, explored a dystopian future America where a person of average IQ is cryogenically frozen and wakes up 500 years later to find that mankind, increasingly dependent on technology built by previous generations that it does not properly maintain or understand, has regressed in intelligence to the standards of current-era mental retardation, and that he has become the de facto smartest person on Earth. Americans have become so stupid that society faces famine and collapse, and according to Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat, «…each laugh is tempered with the unsettling realization that [Judge’s] vision of mankind’s future might not be too far off the mark.»^[27]

See also

References

Further reading

• Avital Ronell (2002). Stupidity. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07127-0.
• Alice von Hildebrand (2008-01-29). «When is Stupidity a Sin?».
• Edmund Bergler (1998). The talent for stupidity: the psychology of the bungler, the incompetent, and the ineffectual. International Universities. ISBN 978-0-8236-6345-3.
• L. Loewenfeld (1909). «Über die Dummbeit: Eine Umschau in Gebiete menschlicher Unzulänglichkeit» (in German).
• Paul Tabori (1962). The natural science of stupidity. Prentice-Hall International.
• Steven J. Bartlett (2005). «Moral Intelligence and the Pathology of Human Stupidity». The pathology of man: a study of human evil. C.C. Thomas. ISBN 978-0-398-07557-6.
• William B. Helmreich (2011). What Was I Thinking? The Dumb Things We Do and How to Avoid Them. Taylor. ISBN 978-1589795976.
• Giancarlo Livraghi (2009). The Power of Stupidity. Pescara: Monti&Ambrosini. ISBN 978-88-89479-15-5.
• Robert J. Sternberg, ed. (2003). Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10170-6.
• Stephen Greenspan (2008). «Foolish action in adults with intellectual disabilities: the forgotten problem of risk-unawareness». In Laraine Masters Glidden (ed.). International Review of Research in Mental Retardation. Vol. 36. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-374476-0.
• James F. Welles (1988). Story of Stupidity: A History of Western Idiocy from the Days of Greece to the Present. Mount Pleasant Press. ISBN 978-0961772918.

External links

• «Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments» The authors received the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology.
• ‘A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organisations’, published in the Journal of Management Studies

глупость, тупость, тупоумие, недомыслие

существительное ↓

Словосочетания

monumental stupidity — колоссальная глупость  
pure stone stupidity — совершеннейшая глупость  
the height of stupidity — верх глупости  
bathos of stupidity — предел глупости  
give a display of stupidity — обнаружить свою глупость; показать свою глупость  

Примеры с переводом

Примеры, ожидающие перевода

Формы слова

noun
ед. ч.(singular): stupidity
мн. ч.(plural): stupidities

Last Updated:
27 Mar 2023
— Updated example sentences

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• stupidité (rare)

Etymology[edit]

From Latin stupiditātem, accusative of Latin stupiditās, equivalent to stupid +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /stjuːˈpɪdɪti/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /stuˈpɪdɪti/
• Rhymes: -ɪdɪti
• Hyphenation: stu‧pid‧i‧ty

Noun[edit]

stupidity (countable and uncountable, plural stupidities)

1. (uncountable) The property of being stupid.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.

   I suppose you can put it down to gross stupidity, but that’s not much of an excuse.

2. (countable) An act that is stupid.

   Jimmy’s stupidity cost him his car.

Synonyms[edit]

• dumbness (informal)
• idiocy
• schmuckiness
• stupidicy (nonstandard)
• unintelligence

Translations[edit]

For other uses, see Stupidity (disambiguation).

Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense. It may be innate, assumed, or reactive — ‘being «stupid with grief» as a defence against trauma’,^[1] a state marked with ‘grief and despair…making even simple daily tasks a hardship’.^[2]

Evolutionary psychology maintains that ‘creative stupidity and able misfits prove the existence of the human learning instincts…can exist because instincts are highly independent’.^[3]

Etymology of the word

Stupidity is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid.^[4] The root word stupid,^[5] which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb stupere, for being numb or astonished, and is related to stupor:^[6] in Roman culture, ‘the stupidus of the mimes’ was a sort of ‘professional buffoon — the «fall-man», the eternal he-who-gets-kicked’.^[7]

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words «stupid» and «stupidity» entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with «fool,» «idiot,» «dumb,» «moron,» and related concepts as a pejorative appellation for human misdeeds, whether purposeful or accidental, due to absence of mental capacity.

The word «stupidest» is increasingly common in newspapers.^[8][9][10]

Definition of Stupidity

The modern English word «stupid» has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senseless, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either infer a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze or slow-mindedness.

James F. Wells, Ph. D., in his book, «Understanding Stupidity,»^[11] defines stupidity thusly, «The term may be used to designate a mentality which is considered to be informed, deliberate and maladaptive.» Dr. Welles distinguishes stupidity from ignorance; one must know they are acting in their own worst interest. Secondly, it must be a choice, not a forced act or accident. Lastly, it requires the activity to be maladaptive, in that it is in the worst interest of the actor, and specifically done to prevent adaption to new data or existing circumstances. According to Dr. Welles, mental schemas, which help us adapt to our environment and process new ideas, can also, simultaneously, be maladaptive: «However adaptive a schema may be, it will also be maladaptive to the extent that built-in biases compromise data so that perceptions will conform to expectations and desires. In addition, a schema’s behavioral program (which presumably was adaptive when formed) might become maladaptive as conditions change. If fundamental conditions change significantly, maintaining a schema may be maladaptive. On the other hand, altering behavior to fit fantasies may also be maladaptive. Just when and how much change is needed are very subjective matters, and the schema is inherently biased about maintaining both its integrity and existence.»^[12]

Laws of Stupidity

The economic historian Carlo Maria Cipolla is famous for his essays about human stupidity. The essay, The Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity, explores the controversial subject of stupidity. Stupid people are seen as a group, more powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination. These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

Playing stupid

Fritz Perls claimed of Albert Einstein’s remark that ‘»Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity»‘ that ‘what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing’.^[13]

Eric Berne described the game of «Stupid» as having ‘the thesis…»I laugh with you at my own clumsiness and stupidity»‘.^[14] He points out that for the protagonist (White) ‘there is considerable external gain, since the less White learns, the more effectively he can play….He has known from an early age that everyone will be satisfied with him as long as he is stupid, despite any expressions to the contrary. People are surprised when in times of stress, if he decides to come through, it turns out that he is not stupid at all — any more than is the «stupid» younger son in the fairy tale’.^[15]

In a Kleinian view as ‘outlined by Wilfred Bion…pseudo-stupidity is a consequence of the massive tendency toward projection and the resulting inability to internalize new knowledge’^[16] in the arrogant.

Intellectual stupidity

Otto Fenichel maintained that ‘quite a percentage of so-called feeble-mindedness turns out to be pseudo-debility, conditioned by inhibition….Every intellect begins to show weakness when affective motives are working against it’.^[17] He suggests that ‘people become stupid ad hoc, that is, when they do not want to understand, where understanding would cause anxiety or guilt feeling, or would endanger an existing neurotic equilibrium’.^[18]

In rather different fashion, Doris Lessing argued that ‘there is no fool like an intellectual…a kind of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience’.^[19]

Persisting in folly

In the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment, a valorisation of the irrational, of the foolish and stupid, emerged, epitomised for example in William Blake’s dictum that ‘if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise’.^[20] A century later, Jung would emphasise that ‘it requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never’.^[21]

Postmodernism would take up a similar theme, noting regretfully how ‘categories…guarantee our intelligence and form the a priori of excluded stupidity’, so that (in order to profit from the excluded) ‘the philosopher must be sufficiently perverse to play the game of truth and error badly…to persist in his confrontation with stupidity, to remain motionless to the point of stupefaction in order to approach it successfully and mime it, to…await the shock of difference’.^[22]

In culture

In comedy

The fool or buffoon has been a central character in much comedy. Alford and Alford found that humor based on stupidity was prevalent in «more complex» societies as compared to some other forms of humor.^[23] Some analysis of Shakespeare’s comedy has found that his characters tend to hold mutually contradictory positions; because this implies a lack of careful analysis it indicates stupidity on their part.^[24] Today there is a wide array of television shows that showcase stupidity such as The Simpsons.^[25]

In literature

The first book in English on stupidity was A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity by Walter B. Pitkin (1932):

According to In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters, (2003) by Merrill R. Chapman:

«While In Search of Excellence turned out to be a fraud, In Search of Stupidity is genuine, and no names have been changed to protect the guilty.» according to one reviewer.^[27]

In film

Stupidity was a 2003 movie directed by Albert Nerenberg.^[28] It depicted examples and analyses of stupidity in modern society and media, and sought «to explore the prospect that willful ignorance has increasingly become a strategy for success in the realms of politics and entertainment.»^[29]

Awards

The Darwin Awards honour people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion.

The World Stupidity Awards are granted in several categories: statement, situation, trend, achievement; man, movie, and media outlet [3]

In technology

Used as a term to retrospectively apply to an earlier generation of technology. For example «stupid-phone» to apply to a 2.5G mobile or POTS or even a non-cordless phone as opposed to the more modern «smartphones» or cordlesses.

See also

References

Further reading

• Avital Ronell (2002). Stupidity. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252071270.
• Alice von Hildebrand (2008-01-29). When is Stupidity a Sin?. http://catholicity.com./commentary/hildebrand/02432.html.
• Edmund Bergler (1998). The talent for stupidity: the psychology of the bungler, the incompetent, and the ineffectual. International Universities. ISBN 9780823663453.
• L. Loewenfeld (1909) (in German). Über die Dummbeit: Eine Umschau in Gebiete menschlicher Unzulänglichkeit. http://textlog.de./loewenfeld-dummheit.html.
• Paul Tabori (1962). The natural science of stupidity. Prentice-Hall International.
• Steven J. Bartlett (2005). «Moral Intelligence and the Pathology of Human Stupidity». The pathology of man: a study of human evil. C.C. Thomas. ISBN 9780398075576.
• Giancarlo Livraghi (2009). The Power of Stupidity. Pescara: Monti&Ambrosini. ISBN 9788889479155.
• Robert J. Sternberg, ed (2003). Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300101706.
• Stephen Greenspan (2008). «Foolish action in adults with intellectual disabilities: the forgotten problem of risk-unawareness». In Laraine Masters Glidden. International Review of Research in Mental Retardation. 36. Academic Press. ISBN 9780123744760.

External links

• «Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments» The authors received the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	stupidity — a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience inability — lack of ability (especially mental ability) to do something craziness, foolishness, folly, madness — the quality of being rash and foolish; «trying to drive through a blizzard is the height of folly»; «adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness» vacuousness — indicative of or marked by mental vacuity and an absence of ideas; «the vacuousness of her face belied her feelings» intelligence — the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience
	2.	stupidity — a stupid mistake       error, fault, mistake — a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention; «he made a bad mistake»; «she was quick to point out my errors»; «I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults»

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

stupidity

noun

1. lack of intelligence, imbecility, obtuseness, simplicity, thickness, slowness, dullness, dimness, dumbness (informal), feeble-mindedness, lack of brain, denseness, brainlessness, doziness (Brit. informal), asininity, dopiness (slang), thickheadedness I stared at him, astonished by his stupidity.

2. silliness, folly, foolishness, idiocy, madness, absurdity, futility, lunacy, irresponsibility, pointlessness, inanity, rashness, impracticality, foolhardiness, senselessness, bêtise (rare), ludicrousness, puerility, fatuousness, fatuity I can’t get over the stupidity of their decision.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations