FOLLY
What does "FOLLY" mean?
Foolishness, or a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose.
Meanings
- Lack of good sense; foolish behavior or a foolish act. Investing his savings in that scheme was sheer folly.
- A decorative building, often a mock tower or ruin, built mainly for show. A Gothic folly crowns the hill above the old estate. technical
Did you know?
- A 'folly' is a recognized architectural type: a costly building - a fake ruin, a mock temple, a useless tower - put up purely for show, named for the foolish extravagance of building it.
Word origin
From Old French 'folie' (madness, foolishness), from 'fol' (mad, foolish), itself from Latin 'follis' (bellows, windbag), implying an empty or inflated head.
Remember it
FOLLY starts like FOOL; both trace back to a Latin word for a bellows - an empty bag full of nothing but air.
A little poem
He built a ruin where none had stood,
and called the wasted stone 'for good'.
couplet
What it teaches
Folly is rarely cheap; the most expensive monuments are often the ones to a decision no one questioned.
Quick facts
What does FOLLY mean?
Foolishness, or a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose.
Is FOLLY a valid word?
Yes — FOLLY is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is FOLLY?
FOLLY has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does FOLLY come from?
From Old French 'folie' (madness, foolishness), from 'fol' (mad, foolish), itself from Latin 'follis' (bellows, windbag), implying an empty or inflated head.
What can FOLLY teach us?
Folly is rarely cheap; the most expensive monuments are often the ones to a decision no one questioned.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.