foolhardy

English

WOTD – 12 November 2017

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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfuːlhɑːdi/
• (General American) 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)

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

• bold
• daring
• foolish
• irresponsible
• rash
• reckless

Derived terms

• foolhardice (obsolete)
• foolhardihood (obsolete)
• foolhardily
• foolhardiness

Translations

marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger

• Bulgarian: безразсъдно смел (bezrazsǎdno smel)
• Dutch: roekeloos (nl), doldriest (nl)
• Esperanto: temerara
• Finnish: hullunrohkea, tyhmänrohkea, huimapäinen
• French: tête brûlée (fr) f
• Galician: temerario m
• German: töricht (de), tollkühn (de), vermessen (de), verwegen (de), ungestüm (de), hitzköpfig, dummdreist (de), waghalsig (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient: ῥιψοκίνδυνος (rhipsokíndunos), φιλοκίνδυνος (philokíndunos)

• Hungarian: vakmerő (hu)
• Indonesian: nekat (id)
• Italian: avventato (it) m, spericolato (it) m, imprudente (it), dissennato (it) m
• Maori: rorohuri
• Russian: безрассу́дно хра́брый (bezrassúdno xrábryj), необду́манно сме́лый (neobdúmanno smélyj), бесшабашный (ru) (besšabašnyj)
• Spanish: temerario (es)
• Swedish: dumdristig (sv)
• Turkish: çılgınca (tr), delidolu (tr)
• Volapük: lukünik (vo)

Noun

foolhardy (plural foolhardies)

1. A person who is foolhardy.
   • 1977, Rolf R. Mueller, Festival and Fiction in Heinrich Wittenwiler's Ring, page 26:

     Resentful of the saddle-fast stranger, eight foolhardies return for more adventure.

   • 2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys:

     Some foolhardies in the schoolhouse laughed at him then and Griff stuck their heads into toilets, one by one over the next week.

Middle English

Adjective

foolhardy

1. Alternative form of folehardy