—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 saeliglig (recorded in unsaeliglig unhappy) f. Gmc
Useful english dictionary. 2012.