the.com/simpleton
Not stupid exactly — just allergic to the second thought.
means A person who is easily fooled or shows poor judgment because they take things at face value without digging deeper.
from Built in the 1600s from 'simple' (plain, unlearned, from Latin simplex, 'single, uncomplicated') plus the mock-Latin suffix '-ton,' likely patterned on names like 'singleton' or 'skeleton' — a jokey, pseudo-grand ending tacked onto a humble word, as if to dress up plainness as a proper title or even a type of person worth cataloguing.
- origin
- from simple plus mocking suffix, coined 1600s
- distinction
- fool jokes on purpose, simpleton means it
- classic use
- Dickens and Twain loved deploying it as insult
- modern cousin
- basically what airhead means without the glamour