fool
a person who lacks good judgment
How often you will meet it
Rank 917 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 20,189 times across 139,755 chapters — 0.010% of every word in the library.
It belongs to the first 1,000 words, the band worth learning before any other.
What it means
noun
- a person who lacks good judgment also: sap, saphead, muggins, tomfool
- a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of also: chump, gull, mark, patsy, fall guy, sucker
- a professional clown employed to entertain a king or nobleman in the Middle Ages also: jester, motley fool
verb
- make a fool or dupe of also: gull, befool
- spend frivolously and unwisely also: fritter, frivol away, dissipate, shoot, fritter away, fool away Fritter away one's inheritance
- fool or hoax also: gull, dupe, slang, befool, cod, put on The immigrant was duped because he trusted everyoneYou can't fool me!
- indulge in horseplay also: horse around, arse around, fool around Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!The bored children were fooling about
fool in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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To fool those chaps by amounting to something.
The Courage of the Commonplace · Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews · Chapter 1
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I have not got one who is a fool.
The Picture of Dorian Gray · Oscar Wilde · Chapter 1
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I daresay the old fool died what the world will call a natural death.
The Abandoned Room · Wadsworth Camp · Chapter 1
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I said right out: ‘You’re an old woman, Emily, and there’s no fool like an old fool.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles · Agatha Christie · Chapter 1
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Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar, the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule.
The Hill: A Romance of Friendship · Horace Annesley Vachell · Chapter 1