goof

noun

\ ˈgüf

Definition of goof

(Entry 1 of 2)

1 : a silly or stupid person

2 : blunder

goof

verb

goofed; goofing; goofs

Definition of goof (Entry 2 of 2)

intransitive verb

1a : to spend time idly or foolishly —usually used with off goofing off instead of working

b : to engage in playful activity —usually used with around goofing around after school

2 : to make a usually foolish or careless mistake : blunder —often used with up

transitive verb

: to make a mess of : bungle —usually used with up goofed up the assignment

goof on

slang

: to make fun of : kid, put on you're goofing on me, right?

Synonyms More Example Sentences Learn More about goof

Keep scrolling for more

Examples of goof in a Sentence

Noun

Don't be such a goof. I'll admit it's my goof. I made a major goof.

Verb

It was clear that someone had goofed.

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun

An adult goof-off goes back to elementary school in order to run his father’s company. — Los Angeles Times, "Movies on TV this week Sept. 1 - 7, 2019: John Wayne in ‘The Searchers’ and more," 30 Aug. 2019 That’s because those goofs typically give read permission to interlopers, but not the ability to write code. — Brian Barrett, WIRED, "Hack Brief: A Card-Skimming Hacker Group Hit 17K Domains—and Counting," 11 July 2019 Our biggest goof: Using a power sander without a vacuum attachment. — Jourdan Fairchild, House Beautiful, "I Renovated My Fireplace After Watching Hours of YouTube, and This is What You Should Know," 12 June 2019 Bill Murray and Adam Driver goof on reanimation in Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die. — Kyle Smith, National Review, "If Hipsters Became Zombies, Could We Tell the Difference?," 11 June 2019 Telltale may be nearly gone for good, but its spirit lives on through the people that made its games — and its goofs. — Megan Farokhmanesh, The Verge, "Former Telltale devs share the best goofs you never saw," 29 Sep. 2018 Ranking the gags and meta-jokes in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a Sisyphean task, but there is one undeniably good goof for Christmas: the holiday record teased in the film. — Megan Farokhmanesh, The Verge, "Into the Spider-Verse Christmas album is real and streamable," 24 Dec. 2018 In an apparent goof, someone ran the new MacBook Air on Geekbench 4.3 and then submitted the results to Geekbench’s official browser database. — Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld, "Here's how much slower (and faster?) Apple's new MacBook Air is than Dell's XPS 13," 2 Nov. 2018 In other words, there’s plenty to reinforce Sandler’s reputation as a relatively lowbrow goof. — Karen Han, Vox, "Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh is a surprising, refreshingly earnest standup special," 28 Oct. 2018

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb

The series of photos, shared to Holland’s Instagram, show the pair goofing off and then, later, posing with each other’s Marvel action figures. — Nick Romano, EW.com, "Tom Holland reunites with Robert Downey Jr. in pics as Spider-Man fate in flux," 23 Aug. 2019 Besides getting into shenanigans with Cole, Trinity goofs off with KJ on set. — Stacey Grant, Seventeen, "Riverdale's Jellybean Talks On Set Pranks with Cole Sprouse and Her Memories of Luke Perry," 18 July 2019 Growing up, when other kids his age were goofing off with each other, the rapper born Darold Ferguson Jr. was instead shadowing his father, who owned a Harlem boutique and designed the iconic Bad Boy Records logo. — Dan Hyman, chicagotribune.com, "ASAP Ferg has taken everything — rap music, fashion, hype — by storm," 12 July 2018 Cara posted group shots of herself and Ashley goofing off in a photo booth with Zoe, Sienna, Suki Waterhouse, Chloé Caillet, Alice Dellal. — Isabella Gomez, Teen Vogue, "Cara Delevingne Celebrated Her 26th Birthday with Ashley Benson and a Mermaid," 19 Aug. 2018 The film opens not in the mountains but at a big urban swimming pool, where a grown man is goofing around with an 8-year-old boy, simultaneously having fun and helping him learn to swim. — San Diego Union-Tribune, "Review: ‘Three Peaks’ is not a peak experience," 2 Aug. 2019 From there, the duo has packed on the PDA, with King sharing photos of them kissing, goofing around, and spending holidays by each other’s side. — Joelle Goldstein, PEOPLE.com, "Elle King Reveals She's Engaged to Her Boyfriend of 15 Months as She Shows Off Her Massive Ring," 4 July 2019 Instagram Stories tagged there include videos of visitors goofing off on a tour, a woman smiling on a swing, a man making funny faces into his front-facing lens. — Taylor Lorenz, The Atlantic, "There’s Nothing Wrong With Posing for Photos at Chernobyl," 12 June 2019 Photographer Daniel Hastings shot the group at a Greenwich photo studio, toking and goofing. — Michael Gonzales, Longreads, "It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer," 10 June 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'goof.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.