foolhardy
English
Etymology
2=bʰelǵʰPlease see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.
From Middle English folehardy, foolhardi, folherdi, from Old French fol hardi (“foolishly bold”), from Old French fol (“foolish, silly; insane, mad”) (from Latin follis (“bellows; purse, sack; inflated ball; belly, paunch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + Old French hardi (“durable, hardy, tough”) (past tense of hardir (“to harden”), from the unattested Frankish *hartjan, from Proto-Germanic *harduz (“hard; brave”)), equivalent to fool + hardy. Compare fool-bold, fool-large, etc.
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "RP" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈfuːlhɑːdi/
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GA" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈfulˌhɑɹdi/
Audio (GA): (file) Audio (AU): (file) - Hyphenation: fool‧har‧dy
Adjective
foolhardy (comparative foolhardier or more foolhardy, superlative foolhardiest or most foolhardy)
- Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.
- 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Monkes Prologue”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC, folio lxxxix, verso, column 1:
- This is my lyfe, but yf that I wold fight / And out at dore, anon I mote me dight / And els I am loſt, but yf that I / Belyke a wylde lyon, fole hardy
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VI, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 68:
- The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of study ceased. The pupils wondered if this fool-hardy boy had lost his mind.
- 2000, Bill Bryson, chapter 1, in In a Sunburned Country, 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 14:
- In the middle distance several foolhardy souls in wet suits were surfing toward some foamy outbursts on the rocky headland; nearer in, a scattering of paddlers was being continually and, it seemed, happily engulfed by explosive waves.
- 2017 March 26, “The Observer view on triggering article 50: As Britain hurtles towards the precipice, truth and democracy are in short supply”, in The Observer[1], London, archived from the original on 30 August 2017:
- It is a reckless, foolhardy leap into the unknown and the prelude, perhaps, to what the existentialist writer Albert Camus described in La chute – a fall from grace, in every conceivable sense.
Synonyms
Derived terms
- foolhardice (obsolete)
- foolhardihood (obsolete)
- foolhardily
- foolhardiness
Translations
marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger
|
Middle English
Adjective
foolhardy
- Alternative form of folehardy
References
- “fol-hardi (adj.)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 21 June 2018.
Categories:
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *kret-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Frankish
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- Middle English terms with quotations
- English terms with quotations
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English adjectives