foolery

From Middle English foleri, ffollery, equivalent to fool +‎ -ery.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfuːləɹi/

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foolery (countable and uncountable, plural fooleries)

1. Foolish behaviour or speech.
   • 1552, Hughe Latymer [i.e., Hugh Latimer], Augustine Bernher, compiler, “”, in Certayn Godly Sermons, Made uppon the Lords Prayer, , London: John Day, , published 1562, →OCLC, folio 5, verso:

     So from that tyme forwarde I began to ſmell the word of god, and forſoke the ſchole doctors and ſuch foolries.

   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines every where.

   • 1624 (first performance), John Fletcher, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. A Comoedy. , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Leonard Lichfield , published 1640, →OCLC, Act II, scene , page 16:

     A wantonneſſe in wealth, methinks I agree not with, / Tis ſuch a trouble to be married too, / And have a thouſand things of great importance, / Jewells and plates, and fooleries moleſt mee, / To have a mans brains whimſied with his wealth: […]

   • 1836, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. , volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Macrone, , →OCLC, chapter IX:

     Tradesmen and clerks, with fashionable novel-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up small assemblies in humble imitation of Almack’s, and promenade the dingy ‘large room’ of some second-rate hotel with as much complacency as the enviable few who are privileged to exhibit their magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and foolery.

   • 1910, John Millington Synge, “Deirdre of the Sorrows”, in Plays by John M. Synge‎, London: George Allen & Unwin, act I, page 319:

     Though you think, maybe, young men can do their fill of foolery and there is none to blame them.

   • 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 2, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished : Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001, part 1, page 1:

     He […] hurried off to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion group' […]

• foolishness

• April foolery
• tomfoolery