Forms: see the sb. [f. FOOL a. or sb.1 Cf. OF. folier, foleiier: see FOLEYE.]
† 1. intr. To be or become foolish or insane.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1420. So faste þay weȝed to him wyne …& al waykned his wyt, & wel neȝe he foles.
1489. Barbour’s Bruce (Edin. MS.), IV. 222.
| Bot he fulyt [the better text has was fule], forowtyn weir | |
| That gaiff throuth till that creatur. |
2. To act like a fool.
a. To act as a foolish or weak-minded person; to play the fool, trifle, idle. Also to fool about, or on, and to fool it. † To fool into: to be brought into by one’s folly. To fool around (U.S.): to ‘hang about’ aimlessly. To fool with: to play or meddle with foolishly; also in indirect passive.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., V. v. 58.
| But my Time | |
| Runs poasting on, in Bullingbrookes proud ioy, | |
| While I stand fooling heere, his iacke o’th’Clocke. | |
| Ibid. (1608), Cor. II. iii. 128. | |
| Rather then foole it so, | |
| Let the high Office and the Honor go | |
| To one that would doe thus. |
a. 1621. Beaum. & Fl., Cust. Country, V. v.
| Is there no end of womens’ persecutions? | |
| Must I needs fool into mine own destruction? |
1676. Wycherley, Pl. Dealer, IV. i. My heart is too much in earnest to be fool’d with, and my desire at height, and needs no delays to incite it.
1685. J. Scott, Chr. Life, II. 134. [He] So fools and fleers on, till he hath toyed and laughed himself out of all Sense of Religion.
1754. Richardson, Grandison, IV. xxxiii. 228. O Harriet! how you hesitated, paraded, fooled on with us, before you came to confession!
1810. Sporting Mag., XXXVI. Sept., 264/2. I do not think this man was taken to the watch-house because he was fooling.
1826. Scott, Woodst., v. Zoons, Mark Everard, I can fool it no longer.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xii. (1889), 112. You and I, perhaps, go fooling about with him, and get rusticated.
1884. Manch. Exam., 28 June, 4/6. The accused … began fooling with a loaded gun.
1885. Mark Twain, Royalty on the Mississippi, in Century Mag., XXIX. Feb., 545/1. They [the pursuers] seemed to stop and fool around awhile.
† b. To act as a fool or jester; to play the buffoon. Also with up. Obs.
1617. Fletcher, Mad Lover, V. iv.
| Foole up, sirra, | |
| You may chance get a dinner. |
1633. Fletcher & Shirley, Night Walker, V. iii. I’le foole vp and provoke ye [to be merry].
1641. Denham, Sophy, IV. 29.
| But if you have the luck to be Court fooles, those that have | |
| Either wit or honesty, you may foole withall and spare not. |
c. quasi-trans. with compl. phrase.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., V. i. 44. Du. You can foole no more money out of mee at this throw.
3. trans. To make a fool of; to impose upon, dupe, trifle with. Also, to balk, frustrate.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., I. iii. 177.
| And shall it, in more shame, be farther spoken, | |
| That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off | |
| By him, for whom these shames ye underwent? |
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 225.
| Cleo. Why that’s the way to foole their preparation, | |
| And to conquer their most absurd intents. |
1663. Cowley, Occas. Verses, Ode on Ld. Broghill’s Verses, 1.
| Be gon (said I) Ingrateful Muse, and see | |
| What others thou canst fool as well as me. |
1706. Estcourt, Fair Examp., IV. i. Luc. I tell you, this Gentleman, this Mr. Springlove, that has fool’d your Faith, wou’d betray your Honour.
1784. Burns, Epit. Henpeckd Sq.
| As father Adam first was fool’d, | |
| (A case that’s still too common,) | |
| Here lies man a woman ruled, | |
| The devil ruled the woman. |
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. clviii.
| This | |
| Outshining and o’erwhelming edifice | |
| Fools our fond gaze. |
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, xxxviii. Conway Dalrymple ought not to have been fooled by such a woman; but I fear that he was fooled by her.
b. To cheat of or delude out of (something); to entice, lure into or to; to put or fob off by trickery.
1650. Trapp, Comm. Gen. xxi. 1. He fools them not off with fair promises.
1663. J. Spencer, Vulg. Prophecies (1665), 28. An impatience of the ignorance of things to come, fooled the Iews as well as the Gentiles out of their Reason and Religion both at once.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 456. But so manifest Eviction in so concerning a Truth as we have here cleared up, I dare confidently pronounce, will not be fooled off for ever.
1678. Marvell, Growth Popery, 28. The Additional Excise upon beer and ale, which the Tripple League had fooled them into.
c. 1680. J. Haines, Epil., in Collect. Poems, 34.
| They all fool Cit of his Wife, | |
| He fools them all of their Pelf, | |
| But your Wit’s so damn’d an Ass, | |
| He only fools himself. |
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1737), IV. iv. 140. Such as come to be thus happily frighted into their Wits, are not so easily fooled out of them again.
1833. H. Blunt, Lect. Hist. St. Paul, II. 200. It [a course of half religion] fools you into the belief that you are, step by step, ascending to the towers of the celestial city, but avoiding the toil, and the difficulty, and the dangers, with which all but yourself are daily struggling.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess., Politics, Wks. (Bohn), I. 237. Nature is not democratic, nor limited monarchical, but despotic, and will not be fooled or abated of any jot of her authority, by the pertest of her sons.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., vi. 144. The English have never yet been fooled to their ruin; and my belief is, that they never will be.
† 4. To make foolish; to infatuate. Obs.
1605. Shaks., Lear, II. iv. 278.
| Foole me not so much | |
| To beare it tamely; touch me with Noble anger. |
1641. Denham, Sophy, III. 25.
| And hee’s so fool’d with downe-right honesty, | |
| Hee’le ne’re beleeve it. |
5. To fool away, † out (also simply): to throw away or part with foolishly; to spend (money, time) foolishly.
1548. Detect. Unskilf. Physic., in Recorde, Urin. Physick (1651), 4. Some have wasted whole Estates in Physick … though I scarce beleeve any wise Man would fool out a Groat on your judgment.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., III. 406.
| Foole thy life away | |
| By tempting Heav’n, in wilfull staying there, | |
| Where, in thy face grim death doth alway stare? |
1641. Sir E. Dering, Sp. on Relig., 22 Nov., xv. (1642), 69. Let no Ammonite perswade the Gileadite to foole out his right eye, unlesse we be willing to make a league with destruction; and to wink at ruine whilst it comes upon us.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 1 June. Ninepins, where I lost about two shillings and so fooled away all the afternoon.
1711. Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 9 July. I was at Bateman’s the bookseller’s, to see a fine old library he has bought; and my fingers itched, as yours would do at a china shop; but I resisted, and found every thing too dear, and I have fooled away too much money that way already.
1728. Young, Love Fame, ii. (1757), I. 91.
| But all men want amusement; and what crime | |
| In such a paradise to fool their time? |
a. 1761. Law, Behmen’s Myst. Magnum, lvi. (1765), III. 329. We see here how Adam has fooled away, and lost the Blessing and divine Unction.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., xx. 507. He fools away his time, his money, and his health, only because he is master of his leisure and of ‘fourscore pound a year,’ with ne’er a pea-pulp in his cranium to guide him in their due disposal.
Hence Fooled ppl. a.
1715. trans. C’tess D’Aunoy’s Wks., 391.
| This impious Grognon, by the fool’d Support | |
| Of a fond Prince, made Cruelty her Sport. |
1742. Young, Nt. Th., v. 32.
| A thousand phantoms, and a thousand spells, | |
| A thousand opiates scatters, to delude, | |
| To fascinate, inebriate, lay asleep, | |
| And the fool’d mind delightfully confound. |
