stupid
pronunciation
How to pronounce stupid in British English:
UK [ˈstjuːpɪd]
How to pronounce stupid in American English:
US [ˈstuːpɪd]
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- Noun:
- a person who is not very bright
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- Adjective:
- lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity
- in a state of mental numbness especially as resulting from shock
- without much intelligence
Word Origin
- stupid
- stupid: [16] As the related stupefy [16] and stupor [17] still do, stupid originally denoted ‘mental numbness’; ‘lack of intelligence’ is a secondary development. It comes via Old French stupide from Latin stupidus, a derivative of stupēre ‘be stunned or numbed with shock’. This was descended from an Indo-European base *stup- or *tup- ‘hit’, which also produced Greek tüptein ‘hit’ and Sanskrit tup- ‘harm, hurt’.=> stupefy, stupor
- stupid (adj.)
- 1540s, "mentally slow, lacking ordinary activity of mind, dull, inane," from Middle French stupide (16c.) and directly from Latin stupidus "amazed, confounded; dull, foolish," literally "struck senseless," from stupere "be stunned, amazed, confounded," from PIE *stupe- "hit," from root *(s)teu- (1) "to push, stick, knock, beat" (see steep (adj.)). Related: Stupidly; stupidness. Native words for this idea include negative compounds with words for "wise" (Old English unwis, unsnotor, ungleaw), also dol (see dull (adj.)), and dysig (see dizzy (adj.)). Stupid retained its association with stupor and its overtones of "stunned by surprise, grief, etc." into mid-18c. The difference between stupid and the less opprobrious foolish roughly parallels that of German töricht vs. dumm but does not exist in most European languages.
Antonym
Example
- 1. It 's such a stupid question .
- 2. We get uncomfortable when they don 't or when they make stupid mistakes .
- 3. They are made stupid by education .
- 4. Not as stupid a question as you might think .
- 5. Will junk food make your child stupid ?