Stupidity

How to spell stupidity

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce stupidity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stupidity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being foolish or lacking good sense or intelligence.

Stupidity in a sentence

• The manager blamed the costly delay on sheer stupidity.

• Ignoring the safety warnings was an act of pure stupidity.

Where does stupidity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb stupere, which literally meant 'to be stunned, numbed, or struck senseless', the same dazed feeling you get from a sudden shock or a blow. From that verb Latin formed the adjective stupidus, describing someone in a state of mental dullness or astonishment, and from there the abstract noun stupiditas, meaning the quality of being so dulled. English picked up the noun in the early 1500s, partly through French stupidité, with the modern sense of foolishness or lack of intelligence firmly attached. A close relative built on the very same root is 'stupor', the medical word for a near-unconscious daze, which preserves that original 'numbed and stunned' meaning more vividly. The spelling keeps the Latin shape clearly: the single 'p', the 'id' from stupidus, and the tidy '-ity' ending that English routinely uses to turn an adjective into a noun.

How the word is built

• stup- (from stupere: to be stunned, numb)
• -id (adjective base, from stupidus)
• -ity (noun suffix forming a quality or state)