Blunderhead

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who makes stupid or careless mistakes habitually and lacks good judgment or intelligence
2. An individual characterized by frequent foolish errors and a notable deficiency in wisdom or common sense
3. A person prone to silly blunders and exhibiting a significant absence of intellectual acuity or sound reasoning

Etymology: "Blunderhead" is a plain compound: "blunder," a mistake made through carelessness or haste, joined to "-head," an English suffix used for a person defined by a trait, as in "blockhead" or "dunderhead." The pattern lets speakers coin an insulting label for someone whose defining quality is a habit of error. The first element, "blunder," is the more interesting part of the story. It seems to have originally meant to move or act blindly, as in stumbling about without seeing where one is going, and only later came to mean a stupid mistake. That sense of groping in the dark explains why the word is so tightly tied to carelessness rather than to deliberate wrongdoing.

Synonyms: fool, dunce, nincompoop, simpleton, blockhead

Antonyms: genius, intellect, brain, whiz, sage