silly
Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance.
Adjective 3 meanings
Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance.
“They were laughing at a silly joke.”
Mentally simple, foolish
“silly mistake”
Very close to the batsman, facing the bowler; closer than short.
Adverb 1 meaning
Sillily: in a silly manner.
Noun 3 meanings
A silly person.
A term of address.
A mistake.
Etymology
From Middle English seely, sēlī, from Old English sǣliġ, ġesǣliġ (“lucky, fortunate”), from Proto-West Germanic *sālīg, from *sāli; equivalent to seel (“happiness, bliss”) + -y. Doublet of Seelie. The semantic evolution is “lucky” to “innocent” to “naive” to “foolish”.
Similar and opposite words
SILLY at a glance
SILLY has 5 letters and scores 8 points in Scrabble (S 1 + I 1 + L 1 + L 1 + Y 4) and 9 in Words With Friends, before board bonuses. It ranks #3,656 by how often it appears in everyday English. It is valid in ENABLE, NWL2023, Collins/SOWPODS.
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