What's the difference between idiot and ignoramus?

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 ...

Ignoramus


Definition:

  • (n.) We are ignorant; we ignore; -- being the word formerly written on a bill of indictment by a grand jury when there was not sufficient evidence to warrant them in finding it a true bill. The phrase now used is, "No bill," "No true bill," or "Not found," though in some jurisdictions "Ignored" is still used.
  • (n.) A stupid, ignorant person; a vain pretender to knowledge; a dunce.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Similarly, while those in the City continue to adopt a Millwall FC-style attitude of "no one likes us, we don't care", there is no incentive for them to heed the advice and demands of the public, who those in the Square Mile prefer to dismiss as intemperate ignoramuses.
  • (2) Bill Bishop, the publisher of the influential Sinocism newsletter , said he believed Beijing was revelling in a once-inconceivable opportunity to contrast its “adult leadership” with the “deranged, ignoramus” one that had taken up residence in the White House: “It is an absolute gift from Trump, both from a short-term PR perspective, but also from a longer-term perspective.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Xi meets a children’s choir in Kehrsatz, Switzerland during his visit to the 2017 Davos forum.
  • (3) Stupid ignoramus slid out of his mouth like music."
  • (4) In general, he is scathing of oligarchs as a class - describing them as a bunch of uncultured ignoramuses.
  • (5) They were just ludicrous ignoramuses compared to me, and I became a Jesus-like figure in my own head.