Word of the Day

: March 10, 2011

ignoramus

noun ig-nuh-RAY-mus

What It Means

: an utterly ignorant person : dunce

ignoramus in Context

"You ignoramus -- you can't splice wires of different colors. You'll start an electrical fire," bawled Adam to his roommate.

"I think, you know, I've been called edgy, but you know, in all honestly, I think that there is a safety in what I do because I'm always the idiot. And unless you're listening to the buzzwords and not really taking into account the context or the content of it, you see that I'm the idiot always, the ignoramus in the scenario." -- Sarah Silverman in an interview on National Public Radio, April 22, 2010

Did You Know?

"Ignoramus" is the title of a farce by George Ruggle (1575-1622) that was first produced in 1615. The title character, whose name in Latin literally means "we do not know," is a lawyer who fancies himself to be quite shrewd but is actually foolish and ignorant. Ruggle may have been inspired in his choice of name for his character by a proceeding in the English judicial system. The term "ignoramus" was written on bills of indictment when the evidence presented seemed insufficient to justify prosecution. In these cases "ignoramus" indicated "we take no notice of (i.e., we do not recognize) this indictment." Such a reference would have been most appropriate for Ruggle's satire of the judiciary.