the opposite word of genious. as in someone who could have been a acknowledged genious if he had had the possibility to develop his talent but since he didn't, he ended up being a complete loser, maybe even abusing drugs or ending up in mental care, because that was the only thing he wanted and was capable to do. As in a sentence like "the gap/distance (?) between genious and (insert word) was not as wide(or long) as he/she would have thought." I don't think 'loser' covers it completely.
If you're referring to someone who is the opposite of intelligent to the point of being mentally disadvantaged, then (no offence intended) retard or, well, mentally disadvantaged may be what you're looking for. It depends on the usage, whether it's for an insult or just a general term for them. Ignoramus. The ending 'ous' usually suggests that the word is an adjective. Ignoramus is a noun.
Hehe, sorry, I see that now. It was late, I was tired... Thanks to all of you fr great suggestions, and to crucifiction, no I didn't mean in the retard-sense. it was more like in the loser-sense. maybe loser is actually the better word but I had a feeling there would be another, better one. right now, in the context, I wrote "madness" just to remember when I look it over the next time. Its not describing a person, but it's good enough for now.
I think you've got a misunderstanding of the word genius. Technically speaking, one cannot do much about whether they are a genius or not. (Which, btw, they several years ago sub-divided into two categories: "genius" and (brilliant mind to a lesser degree) "exceptional") The point being, although it has been faintly argued that you can 'improve' your I.Q. if you 'study' for an I.Q. test, one's I.Q. is not avtsully a measure of what you know but what your capacity to learn and absorb. So you can't do much about what your I.Q is. Say you learned to read your first language at the age of one. You learned your second and third languages by the age of 2 and a half. You were doing basic math (add, subtract, multiply, and divide) at the age of 6 and complex algebraic calculations at the age of 11. By the age of 14 you have two roads from which to choose: Either you are fortunate enough to have gone to a school which recognized your highly superior intelligence and took measures to support that intelligence. You graduated high school at the age of 14 and went on to complete your BA work by the age of 18. OR you were enrolled in a school that failed to acknowledge and nurture that basic intelligence, you grew bored with school, were labelled a lazy problem child or a troublemaker. You gave up trying because everything came so easy and your only real challenges were outside the classroom. You dropped out of school at the age of 16 because there was nothing there to stimulate your mind. In either case, it does not change one's intelligence. The auto mechanic drop out still clocks in on the genius scale at 215. He can figure out complex auto wiring problems in a matter of minutes without diagrams. He listens to Grieg along with his country and rap on the radio. He still challenges his mind beyond the norm. But many still will label him a slaggard. Those are the two divergent paths of the certified genius. Sadly, there are as many in the latter category as the first. Sorry. That probably didn't answer your question but I hope it offered a wee bit of clarification.
The Australian equivalent, then, might be mongrel (like a dog with no discernible breed). It's essentially saying someone has no pedigree in society.
I strongly disagree with this. IQ is not the defining factor for genius. One can be an artistic genius in the areas of music or writing while having a lower IQ than someone with no artistic talent and who is not considered a genius in terms of IQ. Pele was a sporting genius - his IQ is irrelevant. Even in Science it doesn't hold. Richard Feynman is considered a genius, but his IQ was somewhere around 125. As Einstein (a genius for sure though his IQ was never tested) said "imagination is more important than intelligence" and it's very often a stronger indicator of genius than IQ. According to my Oxford Dictionary, genius is simply: 1) A person of exceptional natural ability or 2) An exceptionally intelligent or able person And Wiki says: "Genius (plural geniuses) is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality" To argue that high IQ scores (which measure a very narrow form of intelligence) in and of themselves exclusively measure genius, which seems to be what you're doing above, is with due respect, utterly fallacious.
I don't think so. I know perfectly well what that means but in this case I was thinking more of a creative genius. All of them aren't about maths and studies. Think Mozart, for example. If you have discovered your talent and cannot use it/develop it (because maybe lack of money or other circumstances, I guess it would affect someone quite drastically.
What wordsmith is saying is actually very interesting - technically IQ ranges as follows. Still not helpful, but fascinating. IQ Range ("Deviation IQ") Intelligence Classification 164 and over Genius and near genius <--------------- 148 - 164 Very superior intelligence 132 - 148 Superior intelligence 116 - 132 Above average intelligence 84 - 116 Normal or average intelligence 68 - 84 Dullness 52 - 68 Borderline deficiency Below 52 Mental Deficiency I will however point you towards a thesaurus for more words that means loser: deadbeat, defeated, disadvantaged, down-and-outer, dud, failure, flop, flunkee, has-been, underdog, underprivileged, Also creep, fool, idiot, imbecile, loser , moron, outcast, rabble, riffraff, scum, trash In your case, your looking for the word underachiever i.e they have the potential, but just didn't use it.
