American Heritage Dictionary Entry: fool HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key. Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window. guide to the dictionary THE USAGE PANEL The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions. The Panelists NEED HELP SOLVING A CROSSWORD PUZZLE? Go to our Crossword Puzzle Solver and type in the letters that you know, and the Solver will produce a list of possible solutions. -- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more. OPEN DICTIONARY PROJECT Share your ideas for new words and new meanings of old words! Start Sharing Now! -- See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series! Find out more! INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES? Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com fool (fl) Share: Tweet n. 1. One who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding. 2. One who acts unwisely on a given occasion: I was a fool to have quit my job. 3. One who has been tricked or made to appear ridiculous; a dupe: They made a fool of me by pretending I had won. 4. Informal A person with a talent or enthusiasm for a certain activity: a dancing fool; a fool for skiing. 5. A member of a royal or noble household who provided entertainment, as with jokes or antics; a jester. 6. One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth: a holy fool. 7. A dessert made of stewed or puréed fruit mixed with cream or custard and served cold. 8. Archaic A mentally deficient person; an idiot. v. fooled, fool·ing, fools v.tr. 1. To deceive or trick; dupe: "trying to learn how to fool a trout with a little bit of floating fur and feather" (Charles Kuralt). 2. To confound or prove wrong; surprise, especially pleasantly: We were sure they would fail, but they fooled us. v.intr. 1. Informal a. To speak or act facetiously or in jest; joke: I was just fooling when I said I had to leave. b. To behave comically; clown. c. To feign; pretend: He said he had a toothache but he was only fooling. 2. To engage in idle or frivolous activity. 3. To toy, tinker, or mess: shouldn't fool with matches. adj. Informal Foolish; stupid: off on some fool errand or other.Phrasal Verbs: fool around Informal 1. To engage in idle or casual activity; putter: was fooling around with the old car in hopes of fixing it. 2. To engage in frivolous activity; make fun. 3. To engage in casual sexual activity. 4. a. To have a sexual affair with someone who is not one's spouse or partner. b. To have many sexual affairs. fool away To waste (time or money) foolishly; squander: fooled away the week's pay on Friday night.Idiom: play/act the fool 1. To act in an irresponsible or foolish manner. 2. To behave in a playful or comical manner. [Middle English fol, from Old French, from Late Latin follis, windbag, fool, from Latin follis, bellows; see bhel-2 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices: Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. 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