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(uneducated person): Sometimes used in a non-derogatory sense in Medieval Latin, partially influenced by a folk etymology deriving the term from idiōma, thus “one who speaks only their own language”, i.e., the vernacular and not Latin.
“idiota”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
idiota in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
“idiota”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
a connoisseur; a specialist: (artis, artium) intellegens, peritus (opp. idiota, a layman)
idiota in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Although in some contexts zonzo, bobo, tonto, menso, culero, tarado, idiota, imbécil, estúpido and pendejo may be synonyms, in most contexts they have a different degree of intensity, with zonzo having the mildest connotation, increasing in intensity in that rough order, to estúpido and pendejo, which have the most offensive meaning.