foolishness

foolish | American Dictionary

foolish
adjective
us/ˈfu·lɪʃ/
stupid or unwise:
She was afraid that she would look foolish if she refused to go along with her friends.
It would be foolish of us to assume that everything will work out fine.

foolishly

adverbus/ˈfu·lɪʃ·li/
I would just like to know that my taxes are not being foolishly spent.

foolishness

noun[ U ]us/ˈfu·lɪʃ·nəs/
My father was not one to tolerate foolishness.

Examples of foolish

foolish
These artisans would be more prone to think up foolish schemes created by an imagination uncontrolled by reason and experience.
Just open your eyes, you rash and foolish men, and look at these women, see what they really are.
The education of citizens continues to be a messy business - a messiness that liberal theory would be foolish to ignore.
What is foolish about non-cooperators is not their preferences, which are perfectly understandable, but their principle of rational choice.
I say 'foolish', because such a choice goes against any form of sensible judgement.
Given the wide-ranging canvases of these two volumes, it would be foolish to imagine, or probably to expect, that towns might occupy some privileged position.
But it is hardly foolish to not prefer the act of cooperating in itself, apart from its consequences.
It would, of course, be foolish to imagine that the social structure of the party can be deduced simply from the background of its leaders.
Let us come back to the example of the foolish philanderer.
Although this is quite funny, it is no joke that only the opera's most foolish resident uses such regular rhythm and phrase structure.
However, it would be equally foolish to ignore the weaknesses of this book.
The last few steps-improving hospitals and minimal medical care-are so basic that it seems almost foolish to reiterate them here.
The saying simple things and those farlatter is a foolish reason.
Obviously, if there were no best action it would be foolish to demand that we do the best action.
I was foolish not to have done it before.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.