foolhardy

adj
/ˈfuːlhɑːdi/UK/ˈfulˌhɑɹdi/US

Etymology

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.

  1. derived from *harduz
  2. derived from *hartjan
  3. derived from hardi
  4. derived from *bʰelǵʰ-
  5. derived from follis
  6. derived from fol
  7. derived from fol hardi
  8. inherited from folehardy

Definitions

  1. Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger

    Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.

    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  2. A person who is foolhardy.

    • Resentful of the saddle-fast stranger, eight foolhardies return for more adventure.
    • Some foolhardies in the schoolhouse laughed at him then and Griff stuck their heads into toilets, one by one over the next week.

The neighborhood

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA