December 7, 1998

tomfoolery

What is the origin of, and exact meaning of "tomfoolery"?

Tomfoolery is 'foolish or silly behavior'.

Tomfoolery is, as you might guess, the behavior of a tomfool, that is, a foolish or stupid person; a silly fool'.

(I love this part.) A tomfool was originally Tom Fool, with Tom, a nickname from Thomas, being a stereotypical male given name. Tom was often used in personification before nouns, thus Tom Long 'a person who takes a long time to tell a story', or Tom Piper 'a piper' (this one is found in Spenser). Tom Fool is thus a sort of fourteenth-century equivalent of our modern Joe Cool.

As a (fictitious) proper name, Tom Fool is first recorded in the fourteenth century; a sense 'a person who plays the part of a fool in various dramas; buffoon' appears by the seventeenth century. The generic sense 'a foolish person' is first recorded in the early eighteenth century.

The noun tomfoolery, an intensification the existing foolery, is first recorded in the early ninteenth century.