foolery
(ˈfuːlərɪ)
Also 7 follery.
[f. fool n.1 + -ery.]
1. The habit or practice of fooling or acting foolishly.
| 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Feb. 211 But sike fansies weren foolerie. 1604 Parsons 3rd Pt. Three Convers. Eng. 271 Whether Fox may not beare away the bell for follery. 1694 Wood Life 23 June (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), An implacable enmity to immorality and foolery. 1725 Watts Logic iv. ii. Rule 3 It is mere foolery to multiply distinct particulars in treating of things. 1813 Sporting Mag. XLI. 227 The oddities and simple foolery of this man. 1858 Doran Crt. Fools 38 An immoderate amount of foolery. |
2. A piece of fooling; a foolish or ridiculous action, performance, or thing.
| 1552 Latimer Serm. Eph. vi. in Fruitf. Serm. (1584) 198 It is not that [ringing of belles] that will serue against y{supt} deuill: yet we haue beleued such fooleries in tymes past. 1589 Warner Alb. Eng. vi. xxxi. (1612) 156 With..Fooleries more than few I courted her. 1657 North's Plutarch Add. Lives (1676) 80 When they have turmoil'd themselves about such fooleries [Horoscopes] a long time, they gain nothing thereby. 1662 Evelyn Diary 1 Jan., I went to London, invited to the solemn foolerie of the Prince de la Grange at Lincoln's Inn. 1772 Town & C. Mag. 125 The pleasing levities, and agreable fooleries of a girl. 1830 Athenæum 16 Oct., Sèvres china, buhl cabinets, Indian fans, and other fooleries. 1859 Tennyson Vivien 263 Your pretty tricks and fooleries. |
3. Fools as a class. nonce-use.
| 1843 Sydney Smith Let. 19 Aug. in Mem. (1855) II. 494 He knows how to disguise liberal ideas, and to make them less terrible to the Foolery of a country. |