Word.ws English Dictionary

play the fool

play the fool verb: to behave in a foolish or comical manner.

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

play the fool meaning in Malayalam and Arabic

play the fool in Malayalam

fool about, fool around, clown about
വിഡ്ഢിവേഷം കെട്ടുക, ചപലത കാട്ടുക, തമാശപറയുക, നർമ്മംപറയുക, കോമാളിവേഷം കെട്ടുക, ബഫൂണായി അഭിനയിക്കുക

play the fool in Arabic

behave in a foolish manner
تَصَرَّفَ بِغَبَاء taṣarrafa bi-ḡabāʔ

Forms of play the fool

third-person singular presentplays the fool
present participleplaying the fool
past participleplayed the fool
pastplayed the fool

Questions about play the fool

What does play the fool mean?
Play the fool means to behave in a foolish or comical manner.
What is play the fool in Malayalam?
Play the fool in Malayalam is വിഡ്ഢിവേഷം കെട്ടുക, ചപലത കാട്ടുക, തമാശപറയുക. See Play the fool meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is play the fool?
Play the fool is a verb.
What is the past tense of play the fool?
The past tense of play the fool is played the fool.

Words near play the fool in the dictionary

  1. play the clitar
  2. play the deuce with
  3. play the devil with
  4. play the dickens with
  5. play the field
  6. play the fool
  7. play the game
  8. play the gender card
  9. play the giddy goat
  10. play the giddy ox
  11. play the goat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play the fool (page history and authors); play the fool (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-play the fool.ogg.

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