fooling 1 of 3

fooling

2 of 3

verb

present participle of fool

fooling

3 of 3

noun

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of fooling
Noun
James cuts back inside onto his right foot, fooling the defender, rather than going to the byline off his left foot. Beren Cross, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2025 Each plays a role in fooling their foe, who captures the turtle, while the deer, heeding the turtle’s good counsel, manages a sly escape. John Nemec, The Conversation, 7 Apr. 2025 Myatt has already served time for his fooling art auction houses and others into buying his copies of others’ art, and got out of jail for doing just that in 1999. The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 1 Apr. 2025 The Naperville City Council election is April 1 (not fooling). Naperville Sun, Chicago Tribune, 18 Mar. 2025 Chunky and at times fooling no one with its meandering character logic, there’s a reason most of the awards this film went to Hopkins. Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 17 Mar. 2025 Though the Huskies turned it around in the second half and got close, nobody was fooling anybody. Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 15 Mar. 2025 Those on the right who make excuses for Tate aren’t just fooling themselves. Liam Siegler, National Review, 12 Mar. 2025 Anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves. Efrat Lachter, Fox News, 25 Feb. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fooling
Verb
  • For myself and many of my classmates, the four-story Forever 21 in Times Square was the most exciting part of our senior-class trip to New York City—not joking!
    Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2025
  • And, everyone was joking about it behind his back.
    Todd Nordstrom, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • This stylization gives her a veneer of being disarmingly kind; but ultimately, is a form of deception that caused Sophie to fatally trust this person.
    Tiffany Leigh, Forbes.com, 25 June 2025
  • Codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer, the overnight mission relied on deception, aerial refueling, and near-total radio silence to hit Iran's Fordo and Natanz enrichment facilities—sites that had withstood weeks of sustained Israeli attacks.
    Jesus Mesa, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 June 2025
Verb
  • The show, hosted by actor Alan Cumming and set in a remote Scottish castle, features reality TV veterans and celebrities working together—and often deceiving each other—in challenges for a cash prize.
    Raja Krishnamoorthi, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 Apr. 2025
  • Appearances, though, can be deceiving.
    Bob Harkins, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • The police investigation that followed included surveillance and a ruse where investigators answered local prostitution ads and were directed to the home.
    Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 16 June 2025
  • But this ruse is like the broader trans movement itself, which obliges you to deny the evidence dangling before your own eyes.
    The Editors, National Review, 4 June 2025
Noun
  • That trickery only works when the players understand the layers of the system on a detailed level.
    Sam McDowell, Kansas City Star, 21 June 2025
  • This trickery is a cost-saving measure in that the orchid does not have to manufacture nectar or prodigious amounts of expensive pollen.
    The San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 June 2025
Noun
  • The facility had been subject to sabotage and subterfuge by Israel for many years even before these attacks–including a computer virus that wrecked the centrifuges over a decade ago.
    Geoff Brumfiel, NPR, 26 June 2025
  • When the magazine writer Dylan (Daryl Wein) and his girlfriend and photographer, Lucy (Abigail Cowen), descend upon the rocker Milo (Jack Farthing), there’s subterfuge afoot.
    Lisa Kennedy, New York Times, 1 May 2025
Noun
  • And if veteran wiles is not enough, Golden State (48-34) is not above a little rough play too.
    Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Tiffany Renee Johnson does well in showing the two sides of Senegalese braider Aminata, who is proud and dignified with her peers, but vulnerable to the wiles of her cheating, out-of-work husband.
    Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 May 2025
Noun
  • For people like Soriano, however, the elections are about more than political stratagem and determining which family holds the most nominal power.
    Chad de Guzman, Time, 13 May 2025
  • The scene is straight out of a stratagem by Pier Paolo Pasolini (Bertolucci’s mentor), but Palud takes it literally without applying comparable ideological critique to the rest of her film.
    Armond White, National Review, 28 Mar. 2025

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Fooling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fooling. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on fooling

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!