Lee-Anne, It usually meant an adult mentally inferior to a child three years of age. I'm not sure the definition was uniformly applied, or exactly where they drew the distinction between "adult" and "child". Dean On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 17:58:46 -0500 "Lee-Anne Smithson Dahms" <sdahms@maine.rr.com> writes: "I saw on a 1850 census for Oliver Willey twin brother to my Orrin Turu Willey that one of his children were labeled IDIOTIC." "What did that mean exactly, or what might it have meant?"