folly
folly (fäl′ē)
noun pl. -·lies
- a lack of understanding, sense, or rational conduct; foolishness
- any foolish action or belief
- any foolish and useless but expensive undertaking
- Obsolete wickedness or evil; also, lewdness
- action that ends or can end in disaster
Etymology: ME folie < OFr < fol: see fool
Preposition: of
- mankind: The folly of mankind shall shatter the Seal: He Shall Rise.
- youth: Even my dog Scamp turned his nose up at it the follies of youth!
- war: The second, a moving evocation of the folly of war gives the book its title.
- man: It is not the folly of the man which brings about this necessary fall; it is his wisdom.
Converse of object
- expose: This immediately exposes the folly of using the same advisor.
- realize: Now, too late, I realized mu folly.
- commit: We want to make it clear that wc do not commit the folly of confounding the Communist Party with the fascists.
- demonstrate: It demonstrated the folly of preventive war fought without international support.
- illustrate: The current shambles illustrates the folly of allowing Mr Clarke to stay on to sort out the mess.
- build: The Tower is a folly built by the Earl of Coventry for his wife.
Adjective modifier
- utter: Yet they had to witness this utter folly of death by drug addiction.
- youthful: Young Mr. Cecil, like many independent young gentlemen, for some little time gave full reins to the youthful follies of the age.
- sheer: To do otherwise is, to me, sheer folly.
- monumental: A monumental folly of the highest order which would have seen any respectable company or trade union chairman vacate his seat.
- architectural: Esthetic convention allows that an architectural folly, well executed, can achieve a real artistic integrity in its deliberate incompleteness.
- Victorian: Take her out to a local fort or a Victorian folly.
Modifies a noun
- farm: Folly Farm for youngsters: Situated 9 miles from Park.
- tower: Had a small circular folly tower in its grounds.
Noun used with modifier
All my joys to this are folly, Naught so sweet as melancholy.
Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bestead, Or fill the fixe' d mind with all your toys; Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams.
The root of Evil, Avarice That damn'd ill-natur'd, baneful Vice, Was Slave to Prodigality, That noble Sin; whilst Luxury Employed a Million of the Poor, And odious Pride a Million more; Envy itself, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry; Their darling Folly, Fickleness, In Diet, Furniture and Dress That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made That very Wheel that turned theTrade.
A dead reigna strange epoch of folly and shame.
Fashion, though Folly's child, and guide of fools, Rules e'en the wisest, and in learning rules.
There are as many fools at a university as anywhere But their folly,I admit, has a certain stampöthe stamp of university training, if you like. It is trained folly.
Dead flies causethe ointment of theapothecary tosend forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.
It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to makethantobuy.Thetaylordoesnot attempttomakehis ownshoeAll ofthemfind itfor their interestto employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours and to purchase with a part of its producewhatever else they have occasion for What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?
Idonot know whether itoughttobe so, butcertainlysilly things do cease to be silly if theyare done by sensible people in an impudent way.Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly. It depends upon the character of those who handle it.
This mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor sex is bent, forgetting everysense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady Amberley ought to get a good whipping.
To each his suff'rings, all are men, Condemned alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th'unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
Historians spend their lives and lavish ink Explaining how great commonwealths collapse From great defects of policyöperhaps The cause is sometimes simpler than they think. Have more states perished, then, For having shackled the enquiring mind, Than those who, in their folly not less blind, Trusted the servile womb to breed free men?
Fashionöa word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse.
All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her Loses discount'nanced, and like folly shows.
Goldsmith tells us, when a lovely woman stoops to folly, shehasnothing to do but die; and when shestoopsto be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. See Goldsmith 361:47.
When lovely woman stoops to folly And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?
It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.
A man hates to be moved to folly bya noise.
O ye wha are sae guid yoursel, Sae pious and sae holy, Ye've nought to do but mark and tell Your Neebours'fauts an folly!
Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy!
The obstinancy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinancy of follyand inanity.
Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate, That few, but such as cannot write, translate.
Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly.
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the Manners living as they rise. Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man. See Milton 580:93.
Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
And on that grave where English oak and holly And laurel wreaths entwine, Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, This spray of Western pine!
The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice.
Browse dictionary entries near folly
- following
- followership
- follower
- follow-up
- follow-through
- follow-on offering
- follow-on
- follow-me
- follow
- follies
- Folsom
- FOMA
- Fomalhaut
- FOMC
- FOMC Minutes
- foment
- fomentation
- fond
- fondant
- fondle
