What's the difference between foolish and idiot?

Foolish


Definition:

  • (a.) Marked with, or exhibiting, folly; void of understanding; weak in intellect; without judgment or discretion; silly; unwise.
  • (a.) Such as a fool would do; proceeding from weakness of mind or silliness; exhibiting a want of judgment or discretion; as, a foolish act.
  • (a.) Absurd; ridiculous; despicable; contemptible.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) So, logic would dictate that if Greeks are genuinely in favour of reform – and opinion polls have consistently shown wide support for many of the structural changes needed – they would be foolish to give these two parties another chance.
  • (2) It would be foolish to bet that Saudi Arabia will exist in its current form a generation from now.” Memories of how the Saudis and Opec deliberately triggered an economic crisis in the west in retaliation for US aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war still rankle.
  • (3) That's foolish, because Real Madrid rarely look more uncomfortable than at set pieces.
  • (4) "We regret that Congress was forced to waste its time voting on a foolish bill that was premised entirely on false claims and ignorance," David Jenkins, an REP official, said in a statement.
  • (5) Shorten said while Hicks was “foolish to get caught up in the Afghanistan conflict” the court decision showed an injustice.
  • (6) Many commentators considered the suggestion merely foolish, but computer hackers issued death threats against her and her children, which she promptly posted on Twitter, along with the defiant message: "Get stuffed, losers.
  • (7) And it means that if Labour were to win, Mr Brown would be very foolish, indeed downright wrong, to move Mr Darling.
  • (8) "It was a certain kind of titillation the shop offered," the critic Matthew Collings has written, "sexual but also hopeless, destructive, foolish, funny, sad."
  • (9) Describing the moment McKellen knocked on his dressing room door he said: “I ushered him in nervously, expecting notes for my poor performance or indiscipline – I was a foolish, naughty young actor.
  • (10) But what people did when they were young and foolish, or even when they were not yet public figures, is not always the same.
  • (11) While we have this, it would be foolish to pursue a policy of still constraining resources in the acute sector.
  • (12) All three echoed remarks made recently by the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, who said it would be “foolish” to cut rates in response to a temporary fall in inflation.
  • (13) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (14) In a high-risk, 65-minute speech in Manchester delivered without notes, and 20 minutes longer than he intended, Miliband tried to take the mantle of the 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli's one nation, pointedly grabbing the territory and language of the centre ground which he believes David Cameron has foolishly vacated.
  • (15) But one backbencher, West Australian Liberal Dennis Jensen , has said it is foolish to set up a $20bn medical research fund at the same time as the government is cutting money from scientific agencies, including the CSIRO and the Australian Research Council.
  • (16) Donald Trump is too weak, too foolish and too chaotic to see beyond the immediate crises he has created.
  • (17) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
  • (18) They privately acknowledge they were foolish in taking the bait, but argue they have broken no rules since they were offered no jobs, and therefore have no commercial interests to declare in the MPs' register.
  • (19) "Hopefully, the lesson is to stop this foolish childishness," McCain said Thursday on CNN.
  • (20) The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.” As for the social conditions that obtain: “It is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.” Looking back on my political activism of the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of refusing to accept existing conditions on the basis that they were “wrong and foolish”.

Idiot


Definition:

  • (n.) A man in private station, as distinguished from one holding a public office.
  • (n.) An unlearned, ignorant, or simple person, as distinguished from the educated; an ignoramus.
  • (n.) A human being destitute of the ordinary intellectual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth; a natural fool; a natural; an innocent.
  • (n.) A fool; a simpleton; -- a term of reproach.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Thrasher Mitchell: Then why is that idiot Bernard Hogan-Howe getting a knighthood when his plebby plods tried to stitch me up?
  • (2) According to Deborah Mattinson, his pollster, Brown " loved slogans and believed them to be imbued with a mystical power capable of persuading the most intransigent voter", and therefore went a bundle on them – not least " A future fair for all ", the surreal dud with which Labour went to the country in 2010, following 2005's equally idiotic " forward not back ".
  • (3) But cowardly useful idiots of Warwick have banned @MaryamNamazie.” On Sunday night the union released a statement reversing the decision, which it stated had gone against normal procedures.
  • (4) Aren't the older generation always going to think kids are idiots?
  • (5) Treating voters like idiots doesn't often work – so the posters with a picture of a sick baby, saying, "She needs a new cardiac facility not an alternative voting system", or of the soldier, reading, "He needs bulletproof vests, not an alternative voting system", must surely be an insult too far to the public's intelligence.
  • (6) The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich.
  • (7) Who can complain of physical fear, of the nightmare of a baby eating its way out of your abdomen, of the loss of professional autonomy, staring at a stranger's idiotic grin?
  • (8) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Flynn in 2016: ‘When you’re given immunity, you’ve probably committed a crime’ – video Vladimir Putin’s Russia is generally regarded as America’s mightiest enemy, however idiotic this might be.
  • (9) Whatever they'd gone through in the past, they were idiots for not understanding the modern world.
  • (10) If he was on the verge of becoming a "national treasure" to the minuscule percentage of the nation who could identify him by name were they shown a picture of him, this latest episode will have reminded them that there really are bigger and better idiots in public life to get behind.
  • (11) This is the most pathetic thing I’ve seen in my whole time in the United States Senate … I think they ought to stop posturing and acting like idiots.” Sean Spicer , the White House press secretary, branded the Democrats’ actions “embarrassing”.
  • (12) I picture myself at 80, the idiot who did something faddish instead of what people had always done and can never retire.
  • (13) But it is often said that only an idiot fights a war on two fronts.
  • (14) April 14, 2015 _Ds73_ (@darkeststar73) @sueperkins complete idiots think they can say what they like, glad we're not all the same !
  • (15) Many on the Right still view it as the epitome of all that was irresponsible, idiotic and dangerous about the Sixties, while many on the terminally fractured Left still mourn 1968 as the last great moment of revolutionary possibility.
  • (16) "But she also divides the critics like that other old-school oddball, Norman Wisdom, who was written off as a witless, irritating idiot with a penchant for falling over by some, and seen as a comic genius by others."
  • (17) "Oh, it says, 'You'll regret this one day, you idiot.'"
  • (18) 12.25pm: "Björn Lubbers mentioned in his email you posted at 10am that 'the Dutchies are a very friendly, hospitable and tolerant people, but humans will be humans and idiots will be idiots ...', emails Karin Prill.
  • (19) Every magistrate hears idiotic excuses from stupid criminals, but this is the DWP's unsubtle nudge that all claimants are fraudsters beneath the skin.
  • (20) I'll be cheering for Germany, and should we advance, hide my Germany-hat as deeply as possible in my backpack on the way home ... the Dutchies are a very friendly, hospitable and tolerant people, but humans will be humans and idiots will be idiots ... my cousin, also living in the Netherlands, is taking off his German license plate off his car and parking it deep inside an underground garage ...

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