Foolishness
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being foolish. uncountable
"On page 297 [“Queens Not Balled Thru Robbers”], that quotation from a foreign bee-paper, about the foolishness of thinking that robber-bees ball a queen, is probably all right in the main. Robbers are indeed there for honey—not for reginacide—but perchance no one interferes, and after awhile the honey is gone, and the hive is filled with a miscellaneous crowd largely new comers, who are like a city mob, “the more part know not wherefore they are come together.”"
- 2 a stupid mistake wordnet
- 3 A thing or event that is foolish, or an absurdity. countable
- 4 the trait of acting stupidly or rashly wordnet
- 5 the quality of being rash and foolish wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"If it had not been for your foolishness, we would never have been in that trouble."
Etymology
From Middle English folishnesse, follissnesse, equivalent to foolish + -ness.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.