foolhardy

Definition

Marked by unthinking recklessness with disregard for danger; boldly rash; hotheaded.

Etymology

From Middle English folehardy, foolhardi, folherdi, from Old French fol hardi (“foolishly bold”), from Old French fol (“foolish, silly; insane, mad”) (from Latin follis (“bellows; purse, sack; inflated ball; belly, paunch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + Old French hardi (“durable, hardy, tough”) (past tense of hardir (“to harden”), from the unattested Frankish *hartjan, from Proto-Germanic *harduz (“hard; brave”)), equivalent to fool + hardy. Compare fool-bold, fool-large, etc.

Example Sentences

• "The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of study ceased. The pupils wondered if this fool-hardy boy had lost his mind."
• "In the middle distance several foolhardy souls in wet suits were surfing toward some foamy outbursts on the rocky headland; nearer in, a scattering of paddlers was being continually and, it seemed, happily engulfed by explosive waves."
• "It is a reckless, foolhardy leap into the unknown and the prelude, perhaps, to what the existentialist writer Albert Camus described in La chute – a fall from grace, in every conceivable sense."