foolishly
adverb
Simple meaning
Without good sense or judgment.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
foolihshleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfulɪʃli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
Without good sense or judgment
“He acted foolishly when he agreed to come.”
In a foolish manner.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Without good sense or judgment
Used this way, foolishly is a common word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“He acted foolishly when he agreed to come.”
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use foolishly
- “He acted foolishly when he agreed to come.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Devoid of good sense or judgment.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The trait of acting stupidly or rashly.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.