sil·ly
silly
- pronunciation:
- sI
li
- features:
- Word History, Word Explorer
| part of speech: |
adjective |
| inflections: |
sillier, silliest |
| definition: |
without good sense; foolish.
He was silly enough to look in the refrigerator for his hat.Silly ideas sometimes turn out to be good ideas.- synonyms:
- dumb, foolish
- antonyms:
- sensible
- similar words:
- crazy, dizzy, ridiculous, stupid
|
| related words: |
childish, laughable, playful |
| derivations: |
sillily (adv.), silliness (n.) |
The meaning of
silly has changed many times over the centuries. In the 1200s, it meant "happy, fortunate, or holy." It then came to mean "innocent," and then "helpless or weak." By the 1500s, it was used to mean "simple, ignorant, or foolish."