Moron (psychology)

Moron was originally a scientific term, coined by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from a Greek word meaning "foolish" and used to describe a person with a genetically determined mental age between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale. It was also once applied to people with an IQ of 51-70 and was a step up from "imbecile" (IQ of 26-50) and two steps up from "idiot" (IQ of 0-25). The word moron, along with "retarded" and "feeble-minded" (among others), was once considered a valid descriptor in the psychological community, though these words have all now passed into common slang use, exclusively in a detrimental context.

In his later years, Goddard recanted his previous theories, but they had already been published and translated into German. His writings inspired the Nazis who sent people deemed "morons" to the gas chambers.