idiot savant

noun

idiot sa·​vant ˈi-dē-ət-sə-ˈvänt  -ˈvant  ˈē-ˌdyō-sä-ˈväⁿ 

plural idiots savants ˈi-dē-əts-sə-ˈvänt(s)  -ˈvant(s)  ˈē-ˌdyō-sä-ˈväⁿ(z)  or idiot savants ˈē-ˌdyō-sä-ˈväⁿ(z) 

1

dated, now offensive : savant sense 2

2

: a person who is highly knowledgeable about one subject but knows little about anything else

Getty was a kind of idiot savant of the oil business. He loved every well, knew what it cost to drill, what it produced.

—Jane O'Reilly

Examples of idiot savant in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There was an aspect of him that was like a lost orphan, like this kind of crazy idiot savant. — Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 16 Oct. 2025

But while there’s a veneer of innocence to these home movies—an air of the idiot savant’s capacity to unwittingly capture a glimpse of profundity—their most powerful valence is not one of innocence but of self-effacing knowledge. — Leslie Jamison, The New York Review of Books, 29 Apr. 2020

On the one hand, this understanding of AI as an idiot savant is perfectly sensible. — James Vincent, The Verge, 3 Oct. 2018

Word History

Etymology

French, literally, learned idiot

First Known Use

1870, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Medical Definition

idiot savant

noun

idiot sa·​vant ˈē-ˌdyō-sä-ˈväⁿ; ˈid-ē-ət-sə-ˈvänt, -ˈvant 

plural idiots savants -ˌdyō-sä-ˈväⁿ(z); -əts-sə-ˈvänt(s), -ˈvant(s)  or idiot savants

dated, now offensive : savant