Giddy vs Silly - What's the difference?
giddy | silly |
Dizzy, feeling dizzy or unsteady and as if about to fall down.
Causing dizziness: causing dizziness or a feeling of unsteadiness.
Lightheartedly silly, or joyfully elated.
* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
, title=
, chapter=2 (archaic) Frivolous, impulsive, inconsistent, changeable.
* 1599 ,
* 1784 , , Tirocinium; or, A Review of Schools
(obsolete) To make dizzy or unsteady.
To reel; to whirl.
(label) Pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , I.vi:
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
(label) Simple, unsophisticated, ordinary; rustic, ignorant.
* 1633 , (John Donne), "Sapho to Philænis":
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
* (John Milton) (1608-1674)
Foolish, showing a lack of good sense and wisdom; frivolous, trifling.
Irresponsible, showing irresponsible behaviors.
Semiconscious, witless.
(label) Of a fielding position, very close to the batsman; closer than short.
Simple, not intelligent, unrefined.
* {{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1
, passage=“Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke
(label) Happy; fortunate; blessed.
(label) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* Robynson (More's Utopia)
(colloquial) A silly person; a fool.
(colloquial) A mistake.
In archaic terms the difference between giddy and silly
is that giddy is frivolous, impulsive, inconsistent, changeable while silly is pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.As adjectives the difference between giddy and silly
is that giddy is dizzy, feeling dizzy or unsteady and as if about to fall down while silly is pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.As a verb giddy
is to make dizzy or unsteady.As a noun silly is
a silly person; a fool.giddy
English
Adjective
(er)- The man became giddy upon standing up so fast.
- They climbed to a giddy height.
citation, passage=Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.}}
- The boy was giddy when he opened his birthday presents.
- In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it, for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.
- Young heads are giddy and young hearts are warm,
- And make mistakes for manhood to reform.
Synonyms
* dizzyDerived terms
* giddinessSee also
* vertiginousVerb
- (Chapman)
silly
English
Adjective
(er)- A silly man, in simple weedes forworne, / And soild with dust of the long dried way; / His sandales were with toilesome trauell torne, / And face all tand with scorching sunny ray
- After long storms with which my silly bark was tossed sore.
- The silly buckets on the deck.
- For, if we justly call each silly man'' / A ''little island , What shall we call thee than?
- A fourth man, in a silly habit.
- All that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
George Goodchild
- (Chaucer)
- The silly virgin strove him to withstand.
- A silly , innocent hare murdered of a dog.