foolhardy
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of foolhardy
1175–1225; Middle English folhardy < Old French fol hardi. See fool 1, hardy 1
Explanation
If you decide you are going to scale Mt. Everest next weekend without any training or experience, that would be a foolhardy decision. Use the adjective foolhardy to describe someone who rushes into action without considering the consequences. Foolhardy is a combination of the noun fool and the adjective hardy, meaning "brave" or "bold." Put them together and you’ve got “foolishly brave.” Someone who is foolhardy throws caution to the wind and takes reckless chances. A foolhardy mistake is typically the result of this kind of impulsive behavior. But foolhardy doesn’t always imply foolishness or stupidity; foolhardy can convey courage and romance, as in the case of a foolhardy passion or desire.
Vocabulary lists containing foolhardy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We all know how difficult it can be to predict long-term winners in the stock market, and at this stage of the AI build-out, it might be foolhardy to do so.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
Buying while an outbreak is still in the headlines sounds about as foolhardy as picking up some discounted lettuce at the supermarket, yet there are profitable precedents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Walk into one such event and you are perpetually being sold on a single, perhaps foolhardy decision that could change at least the next few years of your life.
From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2026
Valuing a company that hasn’t made money at $1.8 trillion seems aggressive at best, foolhardy at worst.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Fezile looked as if he thought that was a foolhardy plan.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
Only the foolhardiest would step up to Black Twitter, for example, and demand that it be more welcoming to non–African Americans.
From Slate ● Mar. 15, 2018
We cooked some eggs on it, to show our unconcern, and while we were cooking them up came an American, who had pitched camp in the foolhardiest spot.
From True Tilda by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
They leaned this way and that, the fronts of some thrust outward at an angle to forbid any but the foolhardiest from passing underneath.
From Lady Good-for-Nothing by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
