Word.ws English Dictionary

the more fool someone

the more fool someone phrase: someone is foolish.

Phrase

the more fool [someone]

  1. (idiomatic) Someone is foolish.
    • —That's nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it,—and nothing else.
      Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.
      The more fool Peireskius...1759–1767, [Laurence Sterne], The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume (please specify |volume=I to IX), London: […] T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, […]
    • "You see the Lord an't going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn't have let me get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lying trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye'd better hold to me; I'm somebody, and can do something!"
      "No, Mas'r," said Tom; "I'll hold on. The Lord may help me, or not...1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh....

Origin of the more fool someone

First appeared in writing in Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew.

Questions about the more fool someone

What does the more fool someone mean?
The more fool someone means someone is foolish.
What part of speech is the more fool someone?
The more fool someone is a phrase.

Words near the more fool someone in the dictionary

  1. the mill cannot grind with water that is past
  2. the mills of the gods grind slowly
  3. the mind boggles
  4. the mixture as before
  5. the moon on a stick
  6. the more fool someone
  7. the more one learns about people, the more one likes one's pet
  8. the more the merrier
  9. the more things change, the more they stay the same
  10. the more you know
  11. the more you know, the higher you go

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the more fool someone (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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