Word.ws English Dictionary

act the fool

act the fool is the alternative form of play the fool.

Meaning of play the fool

Verb

play the fool (third-person singular simple present plays the fool, present participle playing the fool, simple past and past participle played the fool)

  1. (idiomatic) To behave in a foolish or comical manner.
    • Back in school again, Maxwell plays the fool again
      Teacher gets annoyed1969, Paul McCartney, “Maxwell's Silver Hammer”, in Abbey Road, performed by The Beatles
  2. (idiomatic) To pretend or feign ignorance.
    • I play the fool when we're together
      But I cry when we're apart, yeah
      I couldn't do you no better
      Don't break what's left of my broken heart, baby1980, Prince, “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?”, in Prince

Forms of act the fool

third-person singular presentacts the fool
present participleacting the fool
past participleacted the fool
pastacted the fool

Questions about act the fool

What is act the fool the alternative form of?
Act the fool is the alternative form of play the fool.

Words near act the fool in the dictionary

  1. act one's age
  2. act one's age, not one's shoe size
  3. act out
  4. act possum
  5. act psychology
  6. act the fool
  7. act the giddy goat
  8. act the goat
  9. act the hypocrite
  10. act the jennet
  11. act the jinnet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: act the fool (page history and authors); play the fool (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “act the fool.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/act_the_fool. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.