Word.ws English Dictionary

motley fool

motley fool noun: a court jester; a jester.

Noun

motley fool (plural motley fools)

  1. A court jester; a jester.
    • A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ th’ forest, / A motley fool. A miserable world!c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Forms of motley fool

pluralmotley fools

Origin of motley fool

From motley (“multi-colored cloth; a jester's clothes”) + fool (“a jester”).

Questions about motley fool

What does motley fool mean?
Motley fool means a court jester; a jester.
What part of speech is motley fool?
Motley fool is a noun.
What is the plural of motley fool?
The plural of motley fool is motley fools.

Words near motley fool in the dictionary

  1. Motles
  2. motley
  3. Motley County
  4. motley crew
  5. motley crews
  6. motley fool
  7. motley fools
  8. motley iron
  9. motleyed
  10. motleyer
  11. motleyest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: motley 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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