fooling

fool  (fl)

n.

1. One who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding.

2. One who acts unwisely on a given occasion: I was a fool to have quit my job.

3. One who has been tricked or made to appear ridiculous; a dupe: They made a fool of me by pretending I had won.

4. Informal A person with a talent or enthusiasm for a certain activity: a dancing fool; a fool for skiing.

5. A member of a royal or noble household who provided entertainment, as with jokes or antics; a jester.

6. One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth: a holy fool.

7. A dessert made of stewed or puréed fruit mixed with cream or custard and served cold.

8. Archaic A mentally deficient person; an idiot.

v. fooled, fool·ing, fools

v.tr.

1. To deceive or trick; dupe: "trying to learn how to fool a trout with a little bit of floating fur and feather" (Charles Kuralt).

2. To confound or prove wrong; surprise, especially pleasantly: We were sure they would fail, but they fooled us.

v.intr.

1. Informal

a. To speak or act facetiously or in jest; joke: I was just fooling when I said I had to leave.

b. To behave comically; clown.

c. To feign; pretend: He said he had a toothache but he was only fooling.

2. To engage in idle or frivolous activity.

3. To toy, tinker, or mess: shouldn't fool with matches.

adj. Informal

Foolish; stupid: off on some fool errand or other.

Phrasal Verbs:

fool around Informal

1. To engage in idle or casual activity; putter: was fooling around with the old car in hopes of fixing it.

2. To engage in frivolous activity; make fun.

3. To engage in casual, often promiscuous sexual acts.

fool away

To waste (time or money) foolishly; squander: fooled away the week's pay on Friday night.

Idiom:

play/act the fool

1. To act in an irresponsible or foolish manner.

2. To behave in a playful or comical manner.

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[Middle English fol, from Old French, from Late Latin follis, windbag, fool, from Latin follis, bellows; see bhel-² in Indo-European roots.]

Word History: The pejorative nature of the term fool is strengthened by a knowledge of its etymology. Its source, the Latin word follis, meant "a bag or sack, a large inflated ball, a pair of bellows." Users of the word in Late Latin, however, saw a resemblance between the bellows or the inflated ball and a person who was what we would call "a windbag" or "an airhead." The word, which passed into English by way of French, is first recorded in English in a work written around the beginning of the 13th century with the sense "a foolish, stupid, or ignorant person."

Thesaurus

Adj.

1.

fooling - characterized by a feeling of irresponsibility; "a broken back is nothing to be casual about; it is no fooling matter" casual light - psychologically light; especially free from sadness or troubles; "a light heart"