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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fool.

A person with poor judgment or little intelligence.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/fuːl/Received-Pronunciation/fʉwl/British, Southern, Standard[fʊwl]British, Southern, Standard/foːl/

  1. A person with poor judgment or little intelligence.

    derogatory
    You were a fool to cross that busy road without looking.
    The village fool threw his own shoes down the well.

  2. A jester; a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court (or lower personages).

    historical

  3. A stock character typified by unintelligence, naïveté or lucklessness, usually as a form of comic relief; often used as a source of insight or pathos for the audience, as such characters are generally less bound by social expectations.

  4. Someone who has been made a fool of or tricked; dupe.

  5. Someone who derives pleasure from something specified.

    informal

  6. An informal greeting akin to buddy, dude, or man.

    slang

  7. A particular card in a tarot deck, representing a jester.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-der. Latin follis Old French folbor. Middle English fol English fool From Middle English fol (“fool”), from Old French fol (cf. modern French fou (“mad”)) from Latin follis. Doublet of fals and follis. Displaced native Old English dwæs.

verb/fuːl/Received-Pronunciation/fʉwl/British, Southern, Standard[fʊwl]British, Southern, Standard/foːl/

  1. To trick; to deceive.

    transitive

  2. To act in an idiotic manner; to act foolishly.

    intransitive

  3. To make a fool of; to make act the fool.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-der. Latin follis Old French folbor. Middle English fol English fool From Middle English fol (“fool”), from Old French fol (cf. modern French fou (“mad”)) from Latin follis. Doublet of fals and follis. Displaced native Old English dwæs.

adj/fuːl/Received-Pronunciation/fʉwl/British, Southern, Standard[fʊwl]British, Southern, Standard/foːl/

  1. Foolish.

    informal
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-der. Latin follis Old French folbor. Middle English fol English fool From Middle English fol (“fool”), from Old French fol (cf. modern French fou (“mad”)) from Latin follis. Doublet of fals and follis. Displaced native Old English dwæs.

noun

  1. A type of dessert made of puréed fruit and custard or cream.

Where this word comes from

From French fouler (“to trample”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.