(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.
Foolishness
Definition:
(n.) The quality of being foolish.
(n.) A foolish practice; an absurdity.
Example Sentences:
(1) So, logic would dictate that if Greeks are genuinely in favour of reform – and opinion polls have consistently shown wide support for many of the structural changes needed – they would be foolish to give these two parties another chance.
(2) It would be foolish to bet that Saudi Arabia will exist in its current form a generation from now.” Memories of how the Saudis and Opec deliberately triggered an economic crisis in the west in retaliation for US aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war still rankle.
(3) That's foolish, because Real Madrid rarely look more uncomfortable than at set pieces.
(4) "We regret that Congress was forced to waste its time voting on a foolish bill that was premised entirely on false claims and ignorance," David Jenkins, an REP official, said in a statement.
(5) Shorten said while Hicks was “foolish to get caught up in the Afghanistan conflict” the court decision showed an injustice.
(6) Many commentators considered the suggestion merely foolish, but computer hackers issued death threats against her and her children, which she promptly posted on Twitter, along with the defiant message: "Get stuffed, losers.
(7) And it means that if Labour were to win, Mr Brown would be very foolish, indeed downright wrong, to move Mr Darling.
(8) "It was a certain kind of titillation the shop offered," the critic Matthew Collings has written, "sexual but also hopeless, destructive, foolish, funny, sad."
(9) Describing the moment McKellen knocked on his dressing room door he said: “I ushered him in nervously, expecting notes for my poor performance or indiscipline – I was a foolish, naughty young actor.
(10) But what people did when they were young and foolish, or even when they were not yet public figures, is not always the same.
(11) While we have this, it would be foolish to pursue a policy of still constraining resources in the acute sector.
(12) All three echoed remarks made recently by the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, who said it would be “foolish” to cut rates in response to a temporary fall in inflation.
(13) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
(14) In a high-risk, 65-minute speech in Manchester delivered without notes, and 20 minutes longer than he intended, Miliband tried to take the mantle of the 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli's one nation, pointedly grabbing the territory and language of the centre ground which he believes David Cameron has foolishly vacated.
(15) But one backbencher, West Australian Liberal Dennis Jensen , has said it is foolish to set up a $20bn medical research fund at the same time as the government is cutting money from scientific agencies, including the CSIRO and the Australian Research Council.
(16) Donald Trump is too weak, too foolish and too chaotic to see beyond the immediate crises he has created.
(17) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
(18) They privately acknowledge they were foolish in taking the bait, but argue they have broken no rules since they were offered no jobs, and therefore have no commercial interests to declare in the MPs' register.
(19) "Hopefully, the lesson is to stop this foolish childishness," McCain said Thursday on CNN.
(20) The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.” As for the social conditions that obtain: “It is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.” Looking back on my political activism of the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of refusing to accept existing conditions on the basis that they were “wrong and foolish”.