tomfoolery

noun tom·fool·ery \ ˌtäm-ˈfül-rē , -ˈfü-lə- \

Updated on: 2 May 2018

Definition of tomfoolery

: playful or foolish behavior

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tomfoolery was our Word of the Day on 11/29/2013. Hear the podcast!

Examples of tomfoolery in a Sentence

There was a lot of tomfoolery going on behind the scenes.
the open bar may have had something to do with the tomfoolery at the wedding reception

Recent Examples of tomfoolery from the Web

To begin the tomfoolery, Alex Bregman coaxed a walk.

— chandler rome, Houston Chronicle, "Astros use late offensive push to knock off Athletics," 29 Apr. 2018
Fifteen years after blasting onto the charts with over-the-top falsetto, body-hugging jumpsuits and hair-metal tomfoolery, the British hard-rock revivalists are back on the UK charts with an accidentally political anthem eschewing public transit.

— courtney devores, charlotteobserver, "8 buzzworthy concerts coming to Charlotte in the next week | Charlotte Observer," 25 Apr. 2018
Expect a show filled with Irish tunes, dancing and plenty of stories and tomfoolery at North Central College in Naperville.

— annie alleman, Aurora Beacon-News, "Celebrate the luck o' the Irish with west suburban fun," 1 Mar. 2018
Today, the Internet's most powerful companies have tried their best to get in on the tomfoolery.

— amanda montell, Woman's Day, "Spilling the Beans on Today's Top April Fool's Day Pranks," 1 Apr. 2013
This is just a different stage for performing the tomfoolery.

— paul daugherty, Cincinnati.com, "Doc: Here’s what remains for Marvin Lewis and the Cincinnati Bengals," 17 Dec. 2017
There's none of the MacBook Pro Thunderbolt-only tomfoolery here.

— samuel axon, Ars Technica, "The iMac Pro is now available—here’s how people are already using it," 14 Dec. 2017
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have disputed the nonpartisan analyses that back up those claims as academic tomfoolery.

— philip elliott, Time, "Republicans Bet Tax Cuts Would Help Their Political Fortunes. They May Have Misread That," 8 Dec. 2017
And Axios co-founder Mike Allen relays his take on the tomfoolery bewitching the swamp.

— jon kelly, The Hive, "Will O.J. Simpson Really Get Rich?," 27 Oct. 2017

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

Did You Know?

In the Middle Ages, "Thome Fole" was a name assigned to those perceived to be of little intelligence. This eventually evolved into the spelling tomfool, which, when capitalized, also referred to a professional clown or a buffoon in a play or pageant. The name Tom seems to have been chosen for its common-man quality, much like "Joe Blow" for an ordinary person or "Johnny Reb" for a soldier in the Confederate army, but tomfoolery need not apply strictly to actions by men. In Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908), for example, Marilla Cuthbert complains of Anne: "She's gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never thinking once about the time or her duties."