blithering idiot
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blithering idiot
cliché An utter fool; an especially stupid person. You blithering idiot! You completely screwed up the machinery! I swear, the board of directors must be made up of a bunch of blithering idiots, considering the direction this company is headed.
See also: idiot
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
blithering idiot
A senseless babbler. This term owes its origin to the Scots dialect verb to blether, meaning to talk nonsense, with blither being a variant spelling. Combining it with “idiot” began in the late 1800s. It appeared in the British humor magazine Punch in 1889: “I’ll state pretty clearly that his son is a blithering idiot.”
See also: idiot
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer