folly means foolishness that results from a lack of foresight or lack of practicality. It carries an Arena rating of 1589, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, folly ranks #753 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,096 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,111 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #3,968 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
folly is pronounced /ˈfɑli/.
Why “folly” is a great word
Folly is a profound lack of good sense, often a volitional and catastrophic lapse in judgment, or its physical embodiment as an extravagant, ornamental structure built without purpose. Its etymology traces from Middle English *folie*, from Old French *folie* ('madness, folly'), derived from the adjective *fol* ('mad, insane, foolish'). Unlike 'stupidity,' which implies a fixed, inherent lack of intelligence, or a 'mistake,' a correctable blunder, folly is a grand misstep born of pride, passion, or pretension—something done with conviction and carried to ruin. It is the gilded palace built upon a floodplain, the heartfelt secret whispered to the town gossip, the meticulous plan that considers every variable except the human heart—a monument to the vanity of certainty, where the heart insists on meaning long after reason has fled.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English folie, from Old French folie (“madness”), from the adjective fol (“mad, insane”).
noun
- Foolishness that results from a lack of foresight or lack of practicality.e.g.“It would be folly to walk all that way, knowing the shops are probably shut by now.”
- Thoughtless action resulting in tragic consequence.e.g.“The purchase of Alaska from Russia was termed Seward's folly.”
- A fanciful building built for purely ornamental reasons.e.g.“A luncheonette in the shape of a coffee cup is particularly conspicuous, as is intended of an architectural duck or folly.”
- A clump of trees, particularly one on the crest of a hill (or sometimes on a stretch of open ground).e.g.“'Every hill seems to have a Folly' [...] 'I mean a clump of trees on the top.'” — 1880, Richard Jeffries, Greene Ferne Farm, page vi:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.