Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Exhibiting a lack of wisdom or good sense; foolish. See Synonyms at foolish.
- adj. Lacking seriousness or responsibleness; frivolous: indulged in silly word play; silly pet names for each other.
- adj. Semiconscious; dazed: knocked silly by the impact.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Happy; fortunate; blessed.
- Plain; simple; rustic; rude.
- Simple-hearted; guileless; ingenuous; innocent.
- Weak; impotent; helpless; frail.
- Foolish, as a term of pity; deficient in understanding; weak-minded; witless; simple.
- Foolish, as an epithet of contempt; characterized by weakness or folly; manifesting want of judgment or common sense; stupid or unwise: as, a silly coxcomb; a silly book; silly conduct.
- Fatuous; imbecile; mentally weak to the verge of idiocy.
- Weak in body: not in good health; sickly; weakly.
- Synonyms Dull, etc. see simple.
- Absurd, Silly, Foolish, etc. See a bsurd.
- n. A silly person: as, what a silly you are!
Wiktionary
- adj. archaic Pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.
- adj. obsolete Simple, unsophisticated, ordinary; rustic, ignorant.
- adj. foolish, showing a lack of good sense and wisdom; frivolous, trifling.
- adj. irresponsible, showing irresponsible behaviors.
- adj. playful, giggly.
- adj. semiconscious, witless.
- adj. cricket of a fielding position, very close to the batsman; closer than short
- adj. pejorative simple, not intelligent, refined.
- n. colloquial A silly person; a fool.
- n. colloquial A mistake.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Happy; fortunate; blessed.
- adj. obsolete Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
- adj. obsolete Weak; helpless; frail.
- adj. obsolete Rustic; plain; simple; humble.
- adj. Weak in intellect; destitute of ordinary strength of mind; foolish; witless; simple.
- adj. Proceeding from want of understanding or common judgment; characterized by weakness or folly; unwise; absurd; stupid.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. dazed from or as if from repeated blows
- adj. ludicrous, foolish
- adj. inspiring scornful pity
- n. a word used for misbehaving children
- adj. lacking seriousness; given to frivolity
Etymologies
- Phonetic variant of seely. From Old English *sǣliġ, "blessed", (attested only in form ġesǣliġ), from Proto-Germanic *sēlīgaz. Cognate with West Frisian sillich, Dutch zalig, German selig. More at sely. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English seli, silli, blessed, innocent, hapless, from Old English gesælig, blessed. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term "silly season," in Washington, usually refers to the August congressional vacation... oh, excuse me, "district work period.”
The Huffington Post: Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points -- Obama's Fourteenth Option
“In fact, even science has justified the term "silly season", with a US professor citing a cocktail of serotonin, cortisol, and dopamine - from all that sugary food and close family time - as the reason we feel less inhibited and highly strung around Christmas.”
“The dialogue must have only been written to provide difficulty for whoever had to speak it – Pak's moving story about the first AC on Carpathia who the writers named Tigger-99, a name silly enough to diffuse any seriousness the tale held.”
“Never mind that the term silly has to be the most benign insult I have ever used or heard.”
Don't Call Me Silly �� The Inherent Problems with Censoring Ad Hominem Attacks and Hate Speech
“The dialogue must have only been written to provide difficulty for whoever had to speak it - Pak's moving story about the first AC on Carpathia who the writers named Tigger-99, a name silly enough to diffuse any seriousness the tale held.”
“Many Americans FlyersRights members among them are dissatisfied and skeptical of what he calls "silly and ineffective security measures designed to obscure glaring weaknesses in a well-funded system that has had 10 years to get it right.”
The Huffington Post: Kate Hanni: Ten Years Later: Are Travelers Really Safer?
“The break for Tennessee-born Taylor came in 1962, when arranger/composer Willie Dixon, impressed by her voice, got her a Chess recording contract and produced several singles and two albums for her, including the million-selling 1965 hit, "Wang Dang Doodle," which she called silly, but which launched her recording career.”
“A spokesman says the governor was joking and his words were being taken out of what he calls a silly entertainment context.”
“Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly affectation, saying that “No man should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.””
“But I will tell you this, it's at times like this, it's at times like this you, if you're thinking of trading the market or averaging down, you put in what I call silly bids, something that you ordinarily would think it'll never get there.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘silly’.
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 136 more...
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Bonkers
List for old and new terms and phrases meaning crazy, nuts, batty, prone to extreme nervousness, etc.
bonkers, crazy, nuts, batty, batchy, bats in the belfry, scatty, crackers, windy, gone crackers, cracked, dingo and 92 more...
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Adjectives with 2 syllables that end ...
angry, bossy, busy, chilly, cheesy, creepy, dirty, early, funny, hairy, happy, healthy and 126 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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tnt07106's list
College Party Words
loaded, waxed, ripped, scrump, retarded, laced, dominate, jungle juice, loose, fornicate, practice making b..., horizontal mambo and 1 more...
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no. 2
lethargic, draining, bane of one's life, hectic, mission, downer, annoying, a pain in the pro..., proverbial, stressful, not ideal, debilitating and 20 more...
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Mentally irregular
Words for the mentally irregular
bonkers, unhinged, batshit crazy, cognitive dissonance, apophenia, undone, loony, unsound, deranged, a bit off the beam, daft, stark ravin' mad and 65 more...
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Kitten Is:
Mere days ago, I found a five-week-old kitten abandoned in the median of the Avenue we live on. She was in terrible shape, but is doing great now thanks to love and dedication.
The fo...small, hyper, bitey, silly, springy, soft, sage-eyed, tortoise shell, archy, darty, sneaky, bestriped and 27 more...
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Words that look like adverbs but aren't
manly, womanly, ungainly, slovenly, homily, costly, dastardly, family, sparkly, wrinkly, oily, orderly and 69 more...
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Funny Laughter Words
Words that speak humor
humor, laugh, funny, laughter, hilarity, guffaw, chortle, giggle, burst, hilarious, happy, chuckle and 66 more...
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List of Silly Words
A list of silly, strange, and generally unusual words.
decemnovenarianize, mammothrept, spaneria, spanogyny, lexiphanic, allorgasmia, marcous, leighster, psaphonic, exsibiliation, paralian, phobophobia and 24 more...
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Monty Python words
inquisition, spanish, spam, parrot, silly, walking, yes it is, no it isn't, argument, clinic, ping!, sperm and 49 more...
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My Favorite Words(:
These are all the words I LOVE! Some are real, some are made up, some are different languages. But I love em' all just the same!
sheath, spectacular, spectabulousarific, lovely, hola, silly, rice, nostalgia, lemons, jargon, strucken, perpendicular and 11 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
Rubbies
Words and things that rub me wrong
eclectic, canon, flesh, irregardless, conversate, can't, mandatory, war on christmas, male bonding, pissa, parochial, infallible and 98 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for silly.
hernesheir In the game cricket, refers to fielders who are in a location quite close to the batsman. Sep 24, 2009
bilby A municipality located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Dec 31, 2007