adj. & n.
adj. (sillier, silliest) 1 lacking sense; foolish, imprudent, unwise. 2 weak-minded. 3 Cricket (of a fielder or position) very close to the batsman (silly mid-off). 4 archaic innocent, simple, helpless.
n. (pl. -ies) colloq. a foolish person. silly billy colloq. a foolish person. the silly season high summer as the season when newspapers often publish trivial material for lack of important news. sillily adv. silliness n.
[ later form of ME sely (dial. seely) happy, repr. OE slig (recorded in unslig unhappy) f. Gmc ]