foolery
English
Etymology
From Middle English foleri, ffollery, equivalent to fool + -ery.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈfuːləɹi/
Audio (UK) (file)
Noun
foolery (countable and uncountable, plural fooleries)
- Foolish behaviour or speech.
- 1552, Hughe Latymer [i.e., Hugh Latimer]; Augustine Bernher, compiler, “[The First Sermon]”, in Certayn Godly Sermons, Made uppon the Lords Prayer, […], London: […] John Day, […], published 1562, OCLC 12219849, folio 5, verso:
- So from that tyme forwarde I began to ſmell the word of god, and forſoke the ſchole doctors and ſuch foolries.
- c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or VVhat You VVill”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:
- Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines every where.
- 1624 (first performance), John Fletcher, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. A Comoedy. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Leonard Lichfield […], published 1640, OCLC 960101958, Act II, scene [ii], page 16:
- A wantonneſſe in wealth, methinks I agree not with, / Tis ſuch a trouble to be married too, / And have a thouſand things of great importance, / Jewells and plates, and fooleries moleſt mee, / To have a mans brains whimſied with his wealth: […]
- 1836, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Macrone, […], OCLC 912950347, chapter IX:
- Tradesmen and clerks, with fashionable novel-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up small assemblies in humble imitation of Almack’s, and promenade the dingy ‘large room’ of some second-rate hotel with as much complacency as the enviable few who are privileged to exhibit their magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and foolery.
- 1910, John Millington Synge, Deirdre of the Sorrows, in Plays by John M. Synge, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1910, Act I, p. 319,
- Though you think, maybe, young men can do their fill of foolery and there is none to blame them.
- 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 2, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 690663892; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001, part 1, page 1:
- He […] hurried off to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion group' […]
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Synonyms
- foolishness
Derived terms
- April foolery
- tomfoolery
Translations
foolish behaviour or speech.
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