What's the difference between folly and fool?

Folly


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being foolish; want of good sense; levity, weakness, or derangement of mind.
  • (n.) A foolish act; an inconsiderate or thoughtless procedure; weak or light-minded conduct; foolery.
  • (n.) Scandalous crime; sin; specifically, as applied to a woman, wantonness.
  • (n.) The result of a foolish action or enterprise.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is a folly to think measures to fix eurozone governance will suffice, however needed those may be.
  • (2) A senior Conservative cabinet minister has issued a warning to leaders "of all political parties" that putting Britain's membership of the European Union at risk would be "complete folly" and that the "irresponsible" debate taking place is damaging the country's influence at the negotiating table.
  • (3) Whenever I hear about David Blunkett's tests for new immigrants, I think of my mother's initial impressions and don't know whether to laugh or cry: laugh because of the patent folly of his attempts to fix what is fluid and to codify what is contested in British identity; or cry at the racism that has inspired it, the nationalism that informs it, and the historical, political and cultural illiteracy that infects every part of it.
  • (4) Vice, folly and humbug – it is the point of satire really.
  • (5) Honor & Folly ( honorandfolly.com , one bedroom $165 a night, both bedrooms $215, plus a sofabed for children) is a home away from home with a fully stocked kitchen and a cosy living area decorated with vintage and locally crafted furniture.
  • (6) His friend Dingle Foot drafted an editorial that David then sharpened up, inserting phrases that summed up his outlook: 'We had not realised that our government was capable of such folly and crookedness...It is no longer possible to bomb countries because you fear that your trading interests will be harmed...this new feeling for the sanctity of human life is the best element in the modern world.'
  • (7) ‘Patriotism’ is a difficult concept to pin, and one man’s patriotism can easily be misjudged as folly or even treachery if we start judging based on a narrow understanding of the term.” Walid, a Muslim veteran of the navy, added that “even though we invaded Iraq based upon bogus information, that doesn’t diminish the sacrifice of Captain Khan and other American service members who lost their lives”.
  • (8) A few years before Lady Thatcher and Mr Letwin became obsessed with the poll tax, the American historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book about the march of folly in human affairs from the Trojan to the Vietnamese war.
  • (9) To continue along this path of folly is not compatible with the maintenance of wealth, nor with the health of humans or the biosphere.
  • (10) At 568,969, the paper’s circulation had recently overtaken that of its old rival, the Sunday Times : it’s not true that it plummeted after Suez as a result of the outrage caused by Astor adding the line: “We had not realised that our government was capable of such folly and such crookedness” to Dingle Foot’s leader – but well-heeled middle-class readers who cancelled their subscriptions were replaced by relatively impoverished students and leftwing intellectuals.
  • (11) Some startlingly grand privately owned buildings have repeatedly appeared on the annual register of the most important listed buildings at risk – virtually all the HHA properties are listed, and many are also scheduled ancient monuments or set in grade I gardens – including garden buildings and follies at Castle Howard in Yorkshire and Frogmore mausoleum, which holds some of the Queen's ancestors, in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
  • (12) In London, the Times newspaper called Ford’s position denying aid to New York City an “act of monumental folly”.
  • (13) Giles Swayne London • "Intelligent" Boris Johnson commits the age-old folly of mistaking good fortune, selfishness, narcissism and aggression for intelligence, but unwittingly demonstrates the wrongness of his position.
  • (14) That police can legally do this, the QCCL argues, illustrates the folly and unfairness of laws intended to safeguard an event at which police, on their own projections, will outnumber protesters three to one.
  • (15) This sad state of affairs shows the folly of handing over taxpayers’ money to unaccountable groups to run schools.
  • (16) There are obvious implications for public services, and the clear link between poor public services and demand for healthcare is ignored at our folly.
  • (17) In a household, it would be economic folly to lay out grand plans without having the money to pay for them.
  • (18) The cliff-side Mussenden Temple is a folly that was modelled on the Temple of Vesta in Rome and built for the Earl Bishop of Derry (one of Lord Bristol’s eccentric forbears), in 1785.
  • (19) Follies plays exquisitely on the unreliability of memory and the ephemerality of theatre; it is a stark warning against the distorting dangers of nostalgia.
  • (20) In giving $850bn to the IMF the G20 are only making the poor suffer more, and forcing them to pay for the folly and greed of bankers and speculators.

Fool


Definition:

  • (n.) A compound of gooseberries scalded and crushed, with cream; -- commonly called gooseberry fool.
  • (n.) One destitute of reason, or of the common powers of understanding; an idiot; a natural.
  • (n.) A person deficient in intellect; one who acts absurdly, or pursues a course contrary to the dictates of wisdom; one without judgment; a simpleton; a dolt.
  • (n.) One who acts contrary to moral and religious wisdom; a wicked person.
  • (n.) One who counterfeits folly; a professional jester or buffoon; a retainer formerly kept to make sport, dressed fantastically in motley, with ridiculous accouterments.
  • (v. i.) To play the fool; to trifle; to toy; to spend time in idle sport or mirth.
  • (v. t.) To infatuate; to make foolish.
  • (v. t.) To use as a fool; to deceive in a shameful or mortifying manner; to impose upon; to cheat by inspiring foolish confidence; as, to fool one out of his money.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After trading mistakes, Wawrinka got lucky at 30-30, mishitting a service return and fooling Djokovic.
  • (2) How opiates became the love of my life | Alisha Choquette Read more The numbers are not specific to the type of drug used, but we’d be fools to think opiates don’t lead the list.
  • (3) Sage did not suffer fools gladly, and often the world seemed increasingly full of them.
  • (4) But it is difficult not to conclude that the survey, which ends on St Andrew’s day, 30 November, has been something of a fools errand for those loyal driveway-trampers.
  • (5) The idea that these problems exist on the other side of the world, and that we Australians can ignore them by sheltering comfortably in our own sequestered corner of the globe, is a fool’s delusion.” Brandis sought to reach out to Australian Muslims, saying the threat came “principally from a small number of people among us who try to justify criminal acts by perverting the meaning of Islam”.
  • (6) "So don't be fooled again: you cannot afford Labour.
  • (7) The Peppers like to be jerks (at Dingwalls Swan dedicated a song to “all you whiney Britishers who can suck my American cock”), but don’t let the surface attitude fool you.
  • (8) So it is only a fool, like me, who would walk nonchalantly around the headland during a high wind.
  • (9) A few months later, the certificate was discovered being used in Iran to fool people who were accessing Gmail into thinking that their connection was secure; in fact any suitably equipped hacker could have monitored their emails.
  • (10) It's Jane Austen all over again, and we've just fooled ourselves that the complicated financial system has changed a thing.
  • (11) No sufferer of fools, he also found it difficult to put up with what he felt to be the arrogance of some colleagues.
  • (12) An immensely cerebral man, who trained himself to need only six hours of sleep - believing that a woman should have seven and only a fool eight - Mishcon was not a man given to small talk, nor one who would tolerate prattle for the sake of it.
  • (13) Standing Rock protests: this is only the beginning Read more “When the Dakota Access Pipeline breaks (and we know that too many pipelines do), millions of people will have crude-oil-contaminated water … don’t let the automatic sink faucets in your homes fool you – that water comes from somewhere, and the second its source is contaminated, so is your bathtub, and your sink, and your drinking liquid.
  • (14) He has been declared "a Shakespearean fool, the only one who can say what others can't" and "an antidote to the proliferation of neo-Nazi movements which took hold of Hungary and Greece".
  • (15) It helps to make testing fun, capitalizes on the student's natural tendency to fool around, and teaches something in the process.
  • (16) 7.44pm BST The April Fools' Day jokes have slowed as people actually get back to work, so we're going to sign off.
  • (17) He said: "To people of a certain age, Stuart Hall will be known as the presenter of It's A Knockout, a good-natured TV programme in which members of the public cheerfully made fools of themselves on camera.
  • (18) Although his finance minister François Baroin pledged on Friday night that there would be no more "austerity measures", only a fool, or someone who expected to be out of office later this year, would promise otherwise.
  • (19) In other words, Mr Johnson is making a fool of himself and of Britain over issues that will have the deepest national repercussions.
  • (20) Cue the day’s first SPR (silent printer rage): another four minutes eaten up by a printer refusing to be fooled by the off-on tactic.