What's the difference between fool and silly?

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.

Silly


Definition:

  • (n.) Happy; fortunate; blessed.
  • (n.) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
  • (n.) Weak; helpless; frail.
  • (n.) Rustic; plain; simple; humble.
  • (n.) Weak in intellect; destitute of ordinary strength of mind; foolish; witless; simple; as, a silly woman.
  • (n.) Proceeding from want of understanding or common judgment; characterized by weakness or folly; unwise; absurd; stupid; as, silly conduct; a silly question.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We just hope that … maybe she’s gone to see her friend, talk some sense into her,” Renu said, adding that Shamima “knew that it was a silly thing to do” and that she did not know why her friend had done it.
  • (2) And Myers is cautioned after a silly block 3.21am GMT 54 mins Besler with a long-throw for SKC but it's cleared.
  • (3) As if to prove her silly dilettantism, when a journalist asked Dasha about her favourite artists, she replied, "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names."
  • (4) Some of them, pulled together for the manifesto, are silly, or doomed, or simply there for shock value - information points in the form of holograms of Dixon of Dock Green, the legalisation of soft drugs, official brothels opposite Westminster, complete with division bells.
  • (5) I am of a similar vintage and, like many friends and fans of the series, bemoan the fact that we are generally treated by society as silly, weak, daft, soppy, prejudiced (even bigoted), risk-averse and wary of new situations.
  • (6) I had more fun with Matt Winning , delivering a silly set on the Free Fringe imagining himself the son of Robert Mugabe.
  • (7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest In an essay for the Hollywood Reporter, Camille Paglia writes that Swift promotes a ‘silly, regressive public image’.
  • (8) His selection on Twitter, he added, was “all in no particular order, off the top of my head, and the most incomplete of lists”, put together in response to Talese’s “silliness”.
  • (9) As soon as they saw how serious it was, they switched from being my silly, fun friends into being the most reliable and amazing people.
  • (10) They were all young, and it was a party house, devoted to games of hide and seek, music, silly practical jokes and food fights in the drawing room.
  • (11) As a result, one or two wrote some rather silly things in their reports,” Wilshaw said.
  • (12) ‘Silly things said by a silly man’ To be honest I really don’t care what BoJo says.
  • (13) People usually don't make silly, careless mistakes when they're motivated and working in a positive environment.
  • (14) Watching “our lads” pretending to mouth questionable lyrics about God giving the Queen near-immortal life, and her being the victor when she’s not really of fighting age, is silly.
  • (15) Imagine my relief this week then, when I found out that I can now let go of all my silly gay politics.
  • (16) We have referees who are unfamiliar with that silly "Goaltender Interference" technicality.
  • (17) The syndrome he described--a psychosis of early onset with a deteriorating course characterized by a "silly" affect, behavioral peculiarities, and formal thought disorder--not only adumbrated Kraepelin's generic category of dementia praecox but quite specifically defined the later subtype of hebephrenic, or disorganized, schizophrenia as well.
  • (18) "But they're so silly that I must say I never found them intimidating."
  • (19) Just as certain songs become inextricably associated in our minds with certain eras (before the invention of iPods, that is, after which everyone could walk around every day with all the songs in the world on shuffle), so too do silly trends.
  • (20) In 2014, she began working as a writer at Late Night with Seth Meyers; her first standup spot on that show began with a joke that typified both her silliness and confidence.