What it means
A dimwit is a slow, dopey sort who takes a while to catch on and tends to get the simple things wrong. The wit is dim, the bulb barely flickering. It is a soft, almost cosy insult, the kind you mutter at the telly or aim fondly at a mate who has just walked into a glass door.
Usage examples
"Only a dimwit would text the group chat about the surprise party with the birthday girl still in it."
"I called myself a dimwit out loud when I found my glasses sitting on top of my own head."
"Some dimwit set the oven to clean instead of bake and we waited two hours for a raw chicken."
"You absolute dimwit, you were pressing the doorbell with your car keys for a full minute."
"I felt like a right dimwit after I searched the whole kitchen for my phone while talking on it."
Where it comes from
Recorded in English from the late 19th century, dimwit is a straightforward compound of dim and wit. It literally frames someone as having dull or weak wits, so the image is baked right into the word. No mystery sauce here, just a neat old insult built from plain English parts.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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