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idiot savant

noun

  1. (often offensive) a person with savant syndrome; a savant
  2. a person who is highly knowledgeable about one subject but knows little about anything else
L1397335 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

noun

Etymology: From French idiot savant, literally ‘wise idiot’.

  1. A person who exhibits an extraordinary ability in one subject (often mathematics) whilst being intellectually disabled in many other domains.

    The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.