[f. as prec. + -NESS.]
1. The quality or condition of being foolish.
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, V. 631. Quhat is this luff? no thing bot folychnes.
1611. Bible, Ps. xxxviii. 5. My wounds stinke, and are corrupt: because of my foolishnesse.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., VI. 441.
| For, he that honest purposes doth blesse, | |
| Converts their wisedome into foolishnesse. |
1718. Prior, Solomon, II. 900.
| Charm’d by their Eyes, their Manners I acquire, | |
| And shape my Foolishness to their Desire. |
1858. Doran, Crt. Fools, 95. All that Puttenham could advance in support of the professional household jester, was that something amusing was to be found in listening to the pretended foolishness of a jester, who had the wit to be wise when he chose so to direct it.
2. A foolish practice, act, or thing; an absurdity.
1535. Coverdale, Wisd. xix. 3. They deuysed another foolishnes: so that they persecute them in their flienge.
1553. Udall, Flowers Latine (1560), 88 b. It is a foolishnesse to suffer that ill to bee dooen, that a man maye auoyde.
1843. J. B. Robertson, trans. Moehler’s Symbolism, I. 40. Was accordingly far removed from those opinions, which make the doctrine of the fall a foolishness.
