| / English Dictionary |
FOLLY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Foolish or senseless behavior
Synonyms:
craziness; folly; foolery; indulgence; lunacy; tomfoolery
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("folly" is a kind of...):
caper; frolic; gambol; play; romp (gay or light-hearted recreational activity for diversion or amusement)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folly"):
meshugaas; mishegaas; mishegoss ((Yiddish) craziness; senseless behavior or activity)
buffoonery; clowning; frivolity; harlequinade; japery; prank (acting like a clown or buffoon)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A stupid mistake
Synonyms:
betise; folly; foolishness; imbecility; stupidity
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("folly" is a kind of...):
error; fault; mistake (a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The trait of acting stupidly or rashly
Synonyms:
folly; foolishness; unwiseness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("folly" is a kind of...):
trait (a distinguishing feature of your personal nature)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folly"):
indiscretion; injudiciousness (the trait of being injudicious)
absurdity; fatuity; fatuousness; silliness (a ludicrous folly)
asininity (the quality of being asinine; stupidity combined with stubbornness)
Antonym:
wisdom (the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight)
Sense 4
Meaning:
The quality of being rash and foolish
Example:
adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness
Synonyms:
craziness; folly; foolishness; madness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("folly" is a kind of...):
stupidity (a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience)
Context examples:
I agree with you that complete frankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in this desperate situation to which James’s folly and jealousy have reduced us.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You can put it right out of your head now, at once, said Summerlee with decision, nothing on earth would induce me to commit such a folly.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You are a willful child, and you've lost more than you know by this piece of folly.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly; while two or three fools more or less would not alter the scheme of things.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home—and the folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
This was broken by Willoughby, who said with a faint smile, It is folly to linger in this manner.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I am conscious of my own past follies.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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