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FOLLIES
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A revue with elaborate costuming
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("follies" is a kind of...):
review; revue (a variety show with topical sketches and songs and dancing and comedians)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "follies"):
Ziegfeld Follies (a series of extravagant revues produced by Flo Ziegfeld)
Context examples:
He went through all our vices and follies, and discovered many, which I had never mentioned to him, by only supposing what qualities a Yahoo of their country, with a small proportion of reason, might be capable of exerting; and concluded, with too much probability, how vile, as well as miserable, such a creature must be.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I am conscious of my own past follies.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
And if it be found that these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories, or the common follies practised by chambermaids among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of the country.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
When I think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be best for you.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
He said, “they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
“Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies, now, sir. That's what makes me comfortable.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
“I thank you, sir,” returned Mr. Littimer; “I see my follies now, sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Before I come here, said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
