silly
IPA: sˈɪɫi
noun
- (colloquial) A silly person.
- (endearing, gently derogatory) A term of address.
- (colloquial) A mistake.
adjective
- Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance.
- (of numbers, particularly prices) Absurdly large.
- (chiefly Scotland, obsolete) Blessed
- Good; pious.
- Holy.
- (now chiefly Scotland and Northern England, rare) Pitiful, inspiring compassion
- (now literary) Innocent; suffering undeservedly, especially as an epithet of lambs and sheep.
- (now literary) Helpless, defenseless.
- Insignificant, worthless, (chiefly Scotland) especially with regard to land quality.
- Weak, frail; flimsy (use concerning people and animals is now obsolete).
- Sickly; feeble; infirm.
- (now rustic UK, rare) Simple, plain
- Rustic, homely.
- (obsolete) Lowly, of humble station.
- Mentally simple, foolish
- (obsolete) Rustic, uneducated, unlearned.
- Thoughtless, lacking judgment.
- (Scotland) Mentally retarded.
- Stupefied, senseless; stunned or dazed.
- (cricket, of a fielding position) Very close to the batsman, facing the bowler; closer than short.
adverb
- (now regional or colloquial) Sillily: in a silly manner.
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Examples of "silly" in Sentences
- The clown made silly jokes.
- They thought it is silly to decentralize.
- Of course, it was a silly and sorrowful war.
- All of the the other issues are plain silly.
- Also, the sectioning of the campaigns is silly.
- Any arguement to the contrary is mute and silly.
- This claim is immoderate, exaggerated, and silly.
- It's silly and downgrades the quality of the article.
- It is a mixture of the serious and the silly, deliberately.
- Never mind that the term silly has to be the most benign insult I have ever used or heard.
- A spokesman says the governor was joking and his words were being taken out of what he calls a silly entertainment context.
- The term "silly season," in Washington, usually refers to the August congressional vacation... oh, excuse me, "district work period."
- The dialogue must have only been written to provide difficulty for whoever had to speak it – Pak's moving story about the first AC on Carpathia who the writers named Tigger-99, a name silly enough to diffuse any seriousness the tale held.
- The dialogue must have only been written to provide difficulty for whoever had to speak it - Pak's moving story about the first AC on Carpathia who the writers named Tigger-99, a name silly enough to diffuse any seriousness the tale held.
- Many Americans FlyersRights members among them are dissatisfied and skeptical of what he calls "silly and ineffective security measures designed to obscure glaring weaknesses in a well-funded system that has had 10 years to get it right."
- In fact, even science has justified the term "silly season", with a US professor citing a cocktail of serotonin, cortisol, and dopamine - from all that sugary food and close family time - as the reason we feel less inhibited and highly strung around Christmas.
- Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly affectation, saying that “No man should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.”
- The break for Tennessee-born Taylor came in 1962, when arranger/composer Willie Dixon, impressed by her voice, got her a Chess recording contract and produced several singles and two albums for her, including the million-selling 1965 hit, "Wang Dang Doodle," which she called silly, but which launched her recording career.
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