How to Use folly in a Sentence

folly

noun
Definition of follynext
Synonyms for follynext
  • The folly of such an action should be apparent to everyone.
  • The idea seems like folly in part because of the scope of the idea.
    — Matthew Herper, STAT, 2 Mar. 2020
  • To give up the fight now, to let my guard down, seems like folly.
    — Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 2022
  • Around the league, the move was viewed as nothing short of folly.
    — Vince Guerrieri, Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Mar. 2023
  • The Astros, once down 8-1, tied the game in the ninth inning on the Twins’ folly.
    — Chandler Rome, Houston Chronicle, 11 Apr. 2018
  • The whole pageant model of virtue comes to seem like folly, and Kai is too smart to miss it.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 19 June 2020
  • The court recognized the folly of New York’s claim and dismissed the case.
    — Ed Hirs, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2024
  • That is the problem, or one of them, with the mere idea of the Qatar World Cup: the majesty intertwined with the folly.
    — Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 8 Dec. 2022
  • And then there are measures that make ATM thefts a folly.
    — Howard Cohen, miamiherald, 4 June 2019
  • The Debt Bomb Bad times also focus the mind on follies.
    — Trefis Team, Forbes, 17 Sep. 2024
  • There’s a scene outside in a stone folly, and there are two wet actors, in the middle of the night.
    — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 5 Jan. 2021
  • Magic fans should know the folly of making a move like this.
    — Josh Robbins, OrlandoSentinel.com, 27 June 2018
  • The folly of counting Xavier out for those reasons should be plain.
    — Chris Johnson, SI.com, 11 Mar. 2018
  • The folly of this wasn’t the only thing Adolph discovered.
    — Richard A. Lovett, Outside Online, 10 Aug. 2020
  • Except the scrappy kids of the Losers’ Club have now grown past the Stranger Things follies of their ‘80s youth and become grown adults.
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Why lie about it when, inevitably, his folly was found out?
    — Rosa Prince, CNN, 7 July 2022
  • In the end, Güero — half-labrador, half-boxer, full-bodied goof — would pay for that folly.
    — Elaine Ayala, ExpressNews.com, 10 Sep. 2019
  • What counts as eccentric in the garden, and what counts as a folly?
    — James Fenton, The New York Review of Books, 16 Mar. 2023
  • The new Aladdin is hardly the folly that the advance bad buzz prepared us for.
    — Joey Nolfi, EW.com, 5 July 2019
  • The two are shut off from the wider community by their folly.
    — Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books, 23 Feb. 2021
  • In King Lear, recall, there is reason in the king’s madness, and wisdom in the fool’s folly.
    — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 30 Jan. 2018
  • All this shows the folly of trying to figure out when stocks have hit bottom.
    — Jason Zweig, WSJ, 8 July 2022
  • His body was writ over with his daring and folly, a testament to the fragility and strength of flesh and bone.
    — Alice Driver, Longreads, 20 Mar. 2018
  • Trying to accuse us of killing the seals is utter folly.
    — Amanda Erickson, Washington Post, 13 May 2018
  • And like all workplace novels, The Factory points out the folly of how so many of us spend our days.
    — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 2 Dec. 2019
  • The traumatic folly of the Bar-Lev line was Israel’s version of the Maginot.
    — The Economist, 28 June 2019
  • Realizing his folly, Keuchel put his hands on his knees and, for a second, stared to the ground.
    — Chandler Rome, Houston Chronicle, 10 Apr. 2018
  • What sounds like folly is probably the savviest thing Masayoshi Son and his team could do right now.
    — Tim Culpan | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 26 Sep. 2019
  • Too many of them were sure that the hubris and folly of his reluctant exit from the Presidency had destroyed him politically.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2024
  • The fact that such an error feels inconsequential amid all the special teams follies the Niners have committed this season speaks volumes.
    — Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 17 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'folly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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