folly

folly · noun¹

1. Old French · derived fromfolie“madness”
2. Middle English · inherited fromfolie
3. English todayfolly

Inherited from Middle English folie, from Old French folie (“madness”), from the adjective fol (“mad, insane”).

folly · noun²

Uncertain. The most common theory is that term primarily denotes a clump of trees and relates to French feuille, feuillée and English foliage; it has also been suggested that it refers to some perceived connection or resemblance of the named place to an architectural folly, but many places so named have no architectural follies and cannot be named directly for them.

Words from the same roots