English
Etymology
From the Italian matto, insane, plus the ending -oid for some likeness or resemblance (from Greek eidos, form).
First appeared in English in 1891 through a translation of the nineteenth-century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso's work, Man of Genius. H G Wells used it in several of his books, most notably in Mankind in the Making of 1903, in which he derides the theories of Lombroso and the Victorian phrenologists: �Among such theorists none at present are in quite such urgent need of polemical suppression as those who would persuade the heedless general reader that every social failure is necessarily a �degenerate�, and who claim boldly that they can trace a distinctly evil and mischievous strain in that unfortunate miscellany which constitutes �the criminal class�... These mattoid scientists make a direct and disastrous attack upon the latent self-respect of criminals.�
Adjective
en-adj
- Displaying erratic bahaviour
Noun
en-noun
- A person who displays such behaviour
- Compound of genius and fool
References
OED (online) 2001
Concise Oxford Dictionary 1964
zh:mattoid
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