Foolish

How to spell foolish

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce foolish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does foolish mean?

1. adjectiveLacking good sense or judgement; unwise.

Foolish in a sentence

• It would be foolish to invest the savings without reading the contract.

• He felt foolish after locking the keys inside the running car.

Where does foolish come from?

Language of origin: French

The root noun 'fool' came into English in the 1200s from the Old French 'fol' (later 'fou'), meaning a madman, jester, or simpleton. That French word descended from the Latin 'follis', which literally meant 'a pair of bellows' or a 'leather bag', and by extension a 'windbag' or 'empty-headed person', so the idea of being full of air rather than sense is baked into its history. English then added its own native adjective suffix '-ish', meaning 'having the quality of', to turn the noun into the descriptive 'foolish', recorded from the 1200s onward. The same '-ish' ending behaves regularly here, simply attaching to 'fool' with no change, which is why the spelling is reassuringly straightforward. The 'oo' in the middle holds its long vowel sound, the very feature that keeps the word easy to spell once you know the noun.

How the word is built

• fool (from Old French fol: a fool, jester)
• -ish (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')