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folly

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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The Temple de l'Amour, a garden folly of the Château de Versailles (France), and more specifically, in the Petit Trianon part of it (sense 3)
The Casino at Marino from Marino (Dublin, Ireland), a Neoclassical folly (sense 3)
The Ionic Temple in Chiswick House gardens (London), with an obelisk in front of it (sense 3)

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Derived from Old French folie (“madness”), from the adjective fol (“mad, insane”).

Noun

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folly (countable and uncountable, plural follies)

  1. Foolishness that results from a lack of foresight or lack of practicality.
    It would be folly to walk all that way, knowing the shops are probably shut by now.
  2. Thoughtless action resulting in tragic consequence.
    The purchase of Alaska from Russia was termed Seward's folly.
    • 2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Thames Water has become the latest object lesson in the predictable and predicted folly of privatised monopolies, aided by a regulator that’s an even bigger wet wipe than the fatbergs bunging up the sewers.
  3. (architecture) A fanciful building built for purely ornamental reasons.
    A luncheonette in the shape of a coffee cup is particularly conspicuous, as is intended of an architectural duck or folly.
    • 1984, William Gibson, chapter 14, in Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 172:
      “The Villa Straylight,” said a jeweled thing on the pedestal, in a voice like music, “is a body grown in upon itself, a Gothic folly. […] ”
    • 2014 September 7, “Doddington's garden pyramid is a folly good show”, in The Daily Telegraph‎[2], London:
      It has been a long time since new follies were springing up across the great estates of Britain. But the owners of Doddington Hall, in Lincolnshire, have brought the folly into the 21st century, by building a 30ft pyramid in the grounds of the Elizabethan manor.
    • 2018 April 18, Paul Cooper, “Europe Was Once Obsessed With Fake Dilapidated Buildings”, in The Atlantic‎[3]:
      A great deal of eccentricity was expressed through the trend for ruin follies. But it wasn’t only the madness of paranoid earls and fashionable landowners that was encoded in them.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Verb

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folly (third-person singular simple present follies, present participle follying, simple past and past participle follied)

  1. (dialectal) To follow.
    • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Penguin, published 1976, →OCLC, page 23:
      "You got any money?" he said to me. ¶ "Hell no, maybe enough for a pint of whisky till I get to Denver. What about you?" ¶ "I know where I can get some." ¶ "Where?" "Anywhere. You can always folly a man down an alley, can't you?"
    • 2002, Richard Kilroy O'Malley, Hobo: A Depression Odyssey, →ISBN, page 104:
      "Anybody got the makin's?" he said. "That's one hell of a thick bunch of canvas, but I follied the seam."
    • 2012, Honor Molloy, Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage, Boston, M.A.: Gemma, →ISBN, page 43:
      Howandever, at the selfsame time, there was a gang of fellas from the valley of kings follying the very same pointy star. And didn't that pointy star point them king-fellas in the direction of Mary's cowstable.

Etymology 3

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Uncertain. The most common theory is that term primarily denotes a clump of trees and relates to French feuille, feuillée and English foliage; it has also been suggested that it references some perceived connection or resemblance of the named place to an architectural folly, but many places so named have no architectural follies and cannot be named directly for them.

Noun

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folly (plural follies)

  1. (largely obsolete outside place names) A clump of trees, particularly one on the crest of a hill (or sometimes on a stretch of open ground).
    • 1880, Richard Jeffries, Greene Ferne Farm, page vi:
      'Every hill seems to have a Folly' [...] 'I mean a clump of trees on the top.'
    • 2003, Orrin H. Pilkey, Mary Edna Fraser, A Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands, page 69:
      Folly Beach, the next island to the south (batik 3.7), bears the name given it by mariners, who looked for the island's tree-crested dune ridge, a volley or folly of trees, as a navigation guide [...] Probably a lot of East Coast islands bore the temporary name of Folly Beach.
    • 2006, Buddy Sullivan, Richmond Hill, page 52:
      During the 1920s and 1930s, Folly Farms (above) [referencing a photograph of a farmhouse surrounded by large trees] was owned by Mrs. Samuel Pennington Rotan of Pennsylvania, who was involved in the effort to improve medical care for the indigent people around Ways Station. [...] Folly Farms was originally known as Myrtle Grove [...]

References

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  • Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “FOLLY”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC. (2): also spelled volly: "A clump of trees standing on the crest of a hill or in a stretch of open ground."
  • A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1901:
    Folly, sb.2 dial. A clump of fir-trees on the crest of a hill. 1880 R[ichard] Jeffries Gr[eene] Ferne F[arm] vi, 'Every hill seems to have a Folly' .. 'I mean a clump of trees on the top.' 1888 Berks. Gloss., There are three such 'vollys' at Hampstead Norreys on the ‘Volly Hill.’

Further reading

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further reading
  • 1939, J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer, F. M. Stenton, English Place-Name Society: Volume 16, The Place-Names of Wiltshire, page 451:
    folly is common in minor names whether in the name The Folly or in such compounds as Folly Barn, Copse, Cottages, Farm (several), Plantation, Row and Wood.
  • Gwyn Headley, Wim Meulenkamp (1999) Follies, Grottoes & Garden Buildings, page 595: “"a copse or grove on a hilltop; a word used by the Normans and mutated by Anglo-Saxons into 'folly'. Hence 'Folly Farm', 'Folly Hill' when no such building existed.”
  • A History of English Field Names, John Field, 2014:
    Folly is occasionally used of clumps of trees, usually isolated plantations on hill-tops or on open land. Examples are Little Folly, a tiny plantation in Lockinge (Berks), and The Folly, in Napton on the Hill (Warks), in Eastleach Turville (Glos) in Hope (Derbys) and a number of other places. Both the derivation and the reason for the application of the term have been disputed, but Folly was first used to denote extravagant buildings and mock ruins in landscaped parks, and then the word was applied to some hill-top plantations resembling such structures. Folly Clump, in Childrey (Berks), is on a hill, and Folly Trees, in Steventon (Berks), is a small copse planted on a mound. Other examples are Folly Copse, in Stitchcombe (Wilts) and in Hartlebury (Worcs), Castle Plantation, in Cheveley (Cambs), earlier Castie Folly, like Hay Stack Folly and Red Gate Folly in the same parish, a small copse.
  • John D. Bennett (2017) Placenames of the Civil War: Cities, Towns, Villages, ..., page 151: “Shute's Folly Island SC [...] "Folly," meaning a cluster of shrubbery or dense foliage, was a term applied to some of the Carolina sea islands by the early colonists.”

Further reading

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Anagrams

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