goofy
Americanadjective
adjective
-
foolish; silly; stupid
-
(of teeth) sticking out; protruding
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of goofy
Explanation
Anything goofy is ridiculous and cute, like a squirrel on a skateboard or a big football player snuggling a teddy bear after every touch down. Goofy things are often well-intentioned but weird. Being awkward, telling dumb jokes and stories, or wearing crazy clothes are all great ways to be goofy. A goofy smile is sweet, unless you’re in England where it means you have big crooked teeth. Goofy, the dopey Disney dog who is all of these things, was created in 1929 when the word was brand new. It comes from a variation on the English dialect goff, "foolish clown."
Vocabulary lists containing goofy
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:
Haaland has gone viral for his goofy Snapchat stories, unfiltered interviews and candid vlogs.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
What follows is an unrepentantly goofy scene in which Mary attempts a serious discussion about and demonstration of the difference between lark and thrush calls.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
Conductors love to play “Pulcinella” for goofy laughs, exaggerating trombone glissandi and the like, relishing guffaws from the audience.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026
An entry on the moorhen comes as a goofy dating profile.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Another day he snatched away her floppy red hat and put it on his own head and did his goofy, flailing dance in front of her.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
And if her goofier choices were unanimously refuted as artistic inferiority, we’d never get the chance to see her bounce from “Babygirl” to “Holland” to playing an Italian forensic pathologist in “Scarpetta.”
From Salon ● Mar. 22, 2026
Pacific Opera Project, L.A.’s goofiest opera company, has never been goofier nor made goofiness so radiant as in its revival of a super-obscure 19th-century satire, Antonio Cagnoni’s “Don Bucefalo.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2024
The Mandalorians-verus-pirates sequence is some real old-fashioned Saturday matinee stuff, leaning hard into some of the scenario’s goofier aspects.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
The goofier “Shazam!,” which cost closer to $100 million to make, opened with $53.5 million in ticket sales and wound up an over-achieving success with $366 million worldwide.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 23, 2022
But where Stewart’s comedy on the series tended to be political, Zelensky’s sometimes veered into much goofier territory — more like Jimmy Fallon.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 28, 2022
The French have given us Delacroix, Debussy, Claire Denis and Simone de Beauvoir, along with some of the goofiest of goofball comedies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
He apologised for a follow-up track he released promising to "humble" Kendrick, saying it was the "lamest, goofiest" thing he'd recorded and was a "mis-step".
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2024
“It’s the goofiest thing in the world,” he says.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2023
“It was the goofiest concept in the world, but they said everything straight-faced,” says Brian Le of director-writers The Daniels’ pitch to them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
Rishi had drawn a hoard of about seven zombies, all nuanced and gross in the goofiest way.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
Definitions 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.
