# cretin

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈkɹɛtɪn/ · frequency rank #56,034

## Definitions
1. A person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital hypothyroidism.
2. An idiot.

## Etymology
From French crétin (“cretin, idiot”), likely from crestin, an Alpine dialectal form of chrétien, from Latin christiānus in the lost sense of “anyone in Christendom”, often with a sense of “poor fellow”. Doublet of Christian.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/cretin