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Puerile vs Foolish - What's the difference?

puerile | foolish | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between puerile and foolish

is that puerile is characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer: puellile while foolish is lacking good sense or judgement; unwise.

puerile

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer : puellile.
  • Childish; trifling; silly.
  • * (rfdate) De Quincey:
  • The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.
  • * 1927 , , page 79:
  • From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.
  • * '>citation
  • Synonyms

    * (childish): juvenile, silly, trifling,

    Derived terms

    * puerilism * puerility

    See also

    * boyish * yobbish * youthful ----

    foolish

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Lacking good sense or judgement; unwise.
  • :
  • *
  • *:As a political system democracy seems to me extraordinarily foolish , but I would not go out of my way to protest against it. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many votes as he can get. I would very gladly make mine over to him if I could.
  • Resembling or characteristic of a fool.
  • :
  • *(Aeschylus)
  • *:It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish .
  • Synonyms

    * absurd * idiotic * ridiculous * silly * unwise

    Antonyms

    * wise

    Derived terms

    * foolishness