Meanings
comparative more sillily · superlative most sillily · alternative obsolete sillyly
- datedhypercorrectIn a silly manner; foolishly.
The man walked down the street so sillily that many a bystander stopped and stared slack-jawed.
2 more examples
It was a fish-trap—just a ring of reeds set up in the water with only one little opening in it, and in this opening, just below the water, were stuck reeds slanting the way of the river's flow, so that the fish, when they had swum sillily in, sillily couldn't get out again.
1906, E. Nesbit, The Story of the AmuletEven 'Che Isa [...] had behaved sillily, making up to married men.
1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 253Synonyms: silly
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbIn a silly manner; foolishly.
Origin
- Englishsilly
- Proto-Indo-European*leyg-
- Proto-Germanic*līką
- Englishsillily
Cite this entry
sillily. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sillily
“sillily.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sillily. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sillily,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sillily.
Source: sillily on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.