as in joking
marked by or expressive of mild or good-natured teasing
ribbed him with fooling comments about how much his hair had grayed
Synonyms & Similar Words
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as in deception
Related Words
1
as in tricking
to cause to believe what is untrue
I fooled him into thinking that we were driving to the store, not to his surprise birthday party
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in kidding
to make jokes
an edgy comedian fooling with an appreciative college audience
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of fooling
Jay Caspian Kang, New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2025
Anyone who thinks that this is an issue that could have been solved by nominating a couple more Spider-Man movies is fooling themselves.
—Nate Jones, Vulture, 19 Dec. 2025
Anyone who predicted this Titans team to win more than four or five games was fooling themselves, and even those predictions are coming off over-optimistic.
—Nick Suss, Nashville Tennessean, 3 Nov. 2025
Either Michigan is fooling everyone in college football, or the Wolverines are fooling themselves.
—Austin Meek, New York Times, 2 Nov. 2025
North Korea, fooling no one, is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
—John M. Crisp, Mercury News, 29 Oct. 2025
The fastball-splitter combo was working well for him again, while his 74 mph curveball was fooling hitters all night as well.
—Scott Thompson, FOXNews.com, 26 Oct. 2025
Only in 2024 did models begin outperforming humans, and by 2025, as previously mentioned, ChatGPT was fooling judges more than 70 percent of the time.
—Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American, 22 Oct. 2025
North Korea, fooling no one, is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
—John M. Crisp, Twin Cities, 22 Oct. 2025
Verb
Early reports indicate that kids are fooling the age-recognition software with sophisticated techniques such as drawing on facial hair and substituting celebrity photos for their own.
—Jay Caspian Kang, New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2025
Anyone who thinks that this is an issue that could have been solved by nominating a couple more Spider-Man movies is fooling themselves.
—Nate Jones, Vulture, 19 Dec. 2025
Anyone who predicted this Titans team to win more than four or five games was fooling themselves, and even those predictions are coming off over-optimistic.
—Nick Suss, Nashville Tennessean, 3 Nov. 2025
Either Michigan is fooling everyone in college football, or the Wolverines are fooling themselves.
—Austin Meek, New York Times, 2 Nov. 2025
North Korea, fooling no one, is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
—John M. Crisp, Mercury News, 29 Oct. 2025
The fastball-splitter combo was working well for him again, while his 74 mph curveball was fooling hitters all night as well.
—Scott Thompson, FOXNews.com, 26 Oct. 2025
Only in 2024 did models begin outperforming humans, and by 2025, as previously mentioned, ChatGPT was fooling judges more than 70 percent of the time.
—Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American, 22 Oct. 2025
North Korea, fooling no one, is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
—John M. Crisp, Twin Cities, 22 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fooling
Noun
-
McCoy is charged with theft by deception, violation of oath of office, and three counts of false statements and writings.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
7 Jan. 2026
-
Harper got fired for the aforementioned deception.—
Alison Herman,
Variety,
6 Jan. 2026
Verb
-
Ukraine orchestrated a fake hit on one of Russia's enemies who has fought alongside Ukrainian forces, tricking the Kremlin into paying out a $500,000 bounty Kyiv used to fund its war effort.—
Louis Casiano,
FOXNews.com,
2 Jan. 2026
-
To pull off his human heist, Mendez must develop and try to sell a Star Wars-esque sci-fi film, in the hopes of tricking the Iranians into believing the American hostages are part of a Canadian film crew.—
Declan Gallagher,
Entertainment Weekly,
26 Dec. 2025
Verb
-
Turn around and make a lighthearted comment to the person behind you, maybe joking about the wait time, Simon-Thomas suggests.—
Angela Haupt,
Time,
9 Jan. 2026
-
Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone exchanged texts on the morning the Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced this week, joking about the outcome after Stone landed a nod and Lawrence did not.—
Anna Tingley,
Variety,
8 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
The New York Colored American reported that some offers of short-term work for Black men — moving livestock to or from Kentucky, for example — were ruses that ended with kidnappings.—
Equal Justice Initiative,
USA Today,
6 Nov. 2025
-
Odysseus, the Ithacan warrior who is as celebrated for craftiness as Achilles is for brute strength, devises a clever ruse in which the Greeks place a giant wooden horse outside Troy’s walls and pretend to sail away.—
Elizabeth D. Samet,
Foreign Affairs,
29 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
Relying Too Much On Garbage Disposals Though the name may be deceiving, garbage disposals aren’t actually designed to dispose of all garbage.—
Quincy Bulin,
Southern Living,
3 Jan. 2026
-
That level of eye-deceiving detail falters in wide shots, however, some of which suffer from unflattering flat lighting that in certain instances recall computer screensavers of yore, given their colorful artificiality.—
Carlos Aguilar,
Variety,
30 Dec. 2025
Adjective
-
To get a sense of his whole deal, look no further than the half-mocking, half-earnest title of his latest album, Country!—
Jonathan Bernstein,
Rolling Stone,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Of course, many Americans vote early and have since the COVID-19 crisis, so his fearmongering about Election Day trickery is pointless.—
Paul Bedard,
The Washington Examiner,
15 Dec. 2025
-
The stunt aims to confirm the robot’s physical capabilities and counter claims of digital trickery, marking an unusual strategy in a sector where technical specifications typically serve as proof.—
Jijo Malayil,
Interesting Engineering,
8 Dec. 2025
Noun
-
The story then unfolded through the subterfuge of the princess and the care of Morton.—
Simon Perry,
PEOPLE,
28 Oct. 2025
-
Unlike the confrontational drudgery of couples therapy — and aiming to avoid the confrontational finality of divorce — this approach relies on subterfuge.—
Sheri Linden,
HollywoodReporter,
23 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Fooling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fooling. Accessed 11 Jan. 2026.
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