Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person with a cognitive or developmental impairment, such as mental retardation or autism, who exhibits extraordinary ability in a highly specialized area, such as arithmetic or memorization.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being mentally retarded in all other fields.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun person who is mentally retarded in general but who displays remarkable aptitude in some limited field (usually involving memory)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French : idiot, idiot + savant, learned.]

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