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.
Phrases and idioms:
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.
Derivatives:
sillily adv. silliness n.
Etymology: later form of ME sely (dial. seely) happy, repr. OE s{aelig}lig (recorded in uns{aelig}lig unhappy) f. Gmc