different between silly vs wild

English

Etymology

From Middle English seely, s?l?, from Old English s?li?, ?es?li? (“blessed; fortunate”), from Proto-West Germanic *s?l?g (“blissful, happy”), from *s?li (“happy, fortunate”). Equivalent to seel (“happiness, bliss”) +? -y. Doublet of Seelie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?li/
• Rhymes: -?li
• Homophone: Scilly

Adjective

silly (comparative sillier, superlative silliest)

1. Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance.
   • 1600, William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, Scene i, line 209:

     This is the silliest stuffe, that euer I heard.

   • 1970, Graham Chapman & al., Monty Python's Flying Circus, I, 183:

     Well sir, I have a silly walk and I'd like to obtain a Government grant to help me develop it.

   1. (of numbers, particularly prices) Absurdly large.
      • 1875 June 26, Saturday Review, 815/2:

        He cannot achieve celebrity by covering himself with diamonds... or by giving a silly price for a hack.

2. (chiefly Scotland, obsolete) Blessed, particularly:
   1. Good; pious.
      • a. 1450, Seven Sages, line 1361:

        The sylyman lay and herde,
        And hys wyf answerd.

   2. Holy.
      • 1650 in 1885, W. Cramond, Church of Rathven, 21:

        ... thrie Saturdayes befor Lambas and thrie efter called the six silie Saturdayes.

3. (now chiefly Scotland and Northern England, rare) Pitiful, inspiring compassion, particularly:
   • 1556 in 1880, William Henry Turner, Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford... 1509–83, 246:

     The fire raging upon the silly Carcase.
   1. (now literary) Innocent; suffering undeservedly, especially as an epithet of lambs and sheep.
      • a. 1475, in 1925, Rossell Hope Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the 14th & 15th Centuries, 109:

        There is no best in þe word, I wene...
        That suffuris halfe so myche tene
        As doth þe sylly wat.

      • a. 1513, William Dunbar, Poems, 247:

        In the silly lambis skin He crap als far as he micht win.

   2. (now literary) Helpless, defenseless.

      scared silly

      • 1539, Richard Morison translating Juan Luis Vives, Introduction to Wysedome:

        Wherfore Christe must soo moche the more instantelye be sought vpon, that he may vouchsafe to defende vs sylly wretches.

      • 1665, Thomas Manley translating Hugo Grotius, De Rebus Belgicis, 938:

        There remained fresh Examples of their Barbarism against weak Sea-men, and silly Fisher-men.

   3. Insignificant, worthless, (chiefly Scotland) especially with regard to land quality.
      • a. 1500, Robert Henryson translating Aesop, "Two Mice":

        Ane sillie scheill vnder ane erdfast stane

      • 1595, William Shakespeare, The third Part of King Henry the Sixt, vvith the death of the Duke of Yorke, Act III, Scene iii, line 93:

        ...A pettigree
        Of threescore and two yeares a sillie time,
        To make prescription for a kingdomes worth.

      • 1907, Transactions of the Highland & Agricultural Society, 19, 172:

        It is naturally very poor, ‘silly’ land.

   4. Weak, frail; flimsy (use concerning people and animals is now obsolete).
      • 1567, John Maplet, A Greene Forest:

        Here we see that a smal sillie Bird knoweth how to match with so great a Beast.

      • 1587, Philip Sidney & al. translating Philippe de Mornay, A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, xxxii, 596:

        [Christ] leaueth neither Children nor kinsfolke behind him to vphold his sillie kingdome.

      • 1946 in 1971, Scottish National Dictionary, Vol. VIII, 234/3:

        That'll never grow. It's ower silly.

   5. Sickly; feeble; infirm.
      • 1636, Alexander Montgomerie, The Cherrie & the Slae, line 1512:

        To doe the thing we can
        To please...
        This silly sickly man.

      • 1818, Walter Scott, "Heart of Mid-Lothian", v:

        Is there ony thing you would particularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?

4. (now rural Britain, rare) Simple, plain, particularly:
   1. Rustic, homely.
      • 1570, John Foxe, Actes & Monumentes, Vol. II, 926/1:

        Dauid had no more but a sylie slynge, and a few stones.

   2. (obsolete) Lowly, of humble station.
      • a. 1547, the Earl of Surrey translating Publius Virgilius Maro, Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aeneis, Book II:

        The silly herdman all astonnied standes.

      • 1568, Alexander Scott, Poems, 27:

        So luvaris lair no leid suld lak,
        A lord to lufe a silly lass.

5. Mentally simple, foolish, particularly:
   1. (obsolete) Rustic, uneducated, unlearned.
      • 1687, Archibald Lovell translating Jean de Thévenot, The Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant, i, 2:

        From Hell (of which the silly people of the Country think the top of this hill to be the mouth).

   2. Thoughtless, lacking judgment.
      • 1576, Abraham Fleming translating Sulpicius, A Panoplie of Epistles, 24:

        Wee sillie soules, take the matter too too heauily.

      • 1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, iii, 252:

        ‘Heaven help this silly fellow,’ murmured the perplexed locksmith.

      • 1972, George Lucas & al., American Graffiti, 8:

        Steve, don't be silly. I mean social intercourse.

      • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 3:

        Framed? Framed? Oh, grow up, Mattie. The truth is that everyone is sillier than you could possibly imagine they'd be. What a dickhead.

   3. (Scotland) Mentally retarded.
      • 1568, Christis Kirk on Grene:

        Fow ?ellow ?ellow wes hir heid bot scho of lufe wes sillie.

      • 1814, Walter Scott, Waverley, III, xvi, 237:

        Davie's no just like other folk... but he's no sae silly as folk tak him for.

   4. Stupefied, senseless; stunned or dazed.
      • 1829 January 17, Lancaster Gazette:

        You say you were knocked silly—was that so?

      • 1907, John Millington Synge, Playboy of the Western World, iii, 64:

        Drinking myself silly...

      • 1942, J. Chodorov & al., Junior Miss, ii, i, 113:

        Well, Judy, now that you've scared me silly, what's so important?

      • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 2:

        I can kick this stuff any time I like. I tell you what. Get this week over, we'll go to a health farm for ten days. No drugs. No drink. And shag ourselves silly. How about that?

6. (cricket, of a fielding position) Very close to the batsman, facing the bowler; closer than short.
   • 1862 July 4, Notts. Guardian:

     Carpenter now placed himself at silly-point for Grundy, who was playing very forward.

Usage notes

Silly is usually taken to imply a less serious degree of foolishness, mental impairment, or hilarity than its synonyms.

The sense meaning stupefied is usually restricted to times when silly is used as a verb complement, denoting that the action is done so severely or repetitively that it leaves one senseless.

Synonyms

• (playful): charming
• Also see Thesaurus:foolish

Antonyms

• (playful): pious

Derived terms

• (adverb): sillily, silly
• silliness
• silly season

Translations

Adverb

silly (comparative sillier, superlative silliest)

1. (now regional or colloquial) Sillily: in a silly manner.
   • 1731, Colley Cibber, Careless Husband, 7th ed., i, i, 21:

     If you did but see how silly a Man fumbles for an Excuse, when he's a little asham'd of being in Love.

Noun

silly (plural sillies)

1. (colloquial) A silly person.
   • 1807 May, Scots Magazine, 366/1:

     While they, poor sillies, bid good night,
     O' love an' bogles eerie.

2. (endearing, gently derogatory) A term of address.
   • 1918 September, St. Nicholas, 972/2:

     ‘Come on, silly,’ said Nannie.

3. (colloquial) A mistake.

Translations

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, ""silly, adj., n., and adv.", 2013.

Anagrams

• silyl, slily, yills

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?ld, IPA^(key): /wa?ld/
• Rhymes: -a?ld

Etymology 1

From Middle English wild, wilde, from Old English wilde, from Proto-West Germanic *wilþ?, from Proto-Germanic *wilþijaz, from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“hair, wool, grass, ear (of corn), forest”).

Adjective

wild (comparative wilder, superlative wildest)

1. Untamed; not domesticated; specifically, in an unbroken line of undomesticated animals (as opposed to feral, referring to undomesticated animals whose ancestors were domesticated).

   Antonym: tame

2. From or relating to wild creatures.

4. Unrestrained or uninhibited.

5. Raucous, unruly, or licentious.

6. (electrical) Of unregulated and varying frequency.

7. Visibly and overtly anxious; frantic.

8. Furious; very angry.
9. Disheveled, tangled, or untidy.

10. Enthusiastic.

11. Inaccurate.

12. Exposed to the wind and sea; unsheltered.

13. (nautical) Hard to steer; said of a vessel.
14. (mathematics, of a knot) Not capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.

    Antonym: tame

15. (slang) Amazing, awesome, unbelievable.

16. Able to stand in for others, e.g. a card in games, or a text character in computer pattern matching.
    • 2009, Leonardo Vanneschi, Steven Gustafson, Alberto Moraglio, Genetic Programming: 12th European Conference

      We define a pattern as a valid GP subtree that might contain wild characters [i.e. wildcards] in any of its nodes.

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

wild (comparative more wild, superlative most wild)

1. Inaccurately; not on target.

Noun

wild (plural wilds)

1. The undomesticated state of a wild animal

2. (chiefly in the plural) a wilderness
   • 1730–1774, Oliver Goldsmith, Introductory to Switzerland

     Thus every good his native wilds impart
     Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
     And e’en those ills that round his mansion rise
     Enhance the bliss his scanty funds supplies.

Verb

wild (third-person singular simple present wilds, present participle wilding, simple past and past participle wilded)

1. (intransitive, slang) To commit random acts of assault, robbery, and rape in an urban setting, especially as a gang.
   • 1989, David E. Pitt, Jogger's Attackers Terrorized at Least 9 in 2 Hours, New York Times (April 22, 1989), page 1:

     ...Chief of Detectives Robert Colangelo, who said the attacks appeared unrelated to money, race, drugs, or alcohol, said that some of the 20 youths brought in for questioning has told investigators that the crime spree was the product of a pastime called "wilding".
     "It's not a term that we in the police had heard before," the chief said, noting that the police were unaware of any similar incident in the park recently. "They just said, 'We were going wilding.' In my mind at this point, it implies that they were going to raise hell."...

   • 1999, Busta Rhymes (Trevor Taheim Smith, Jr.), Iz They Wildin Wit Us? (song)

     Now is they wildin with us / And getting rowdy with us.

Etymology 2

Noun

wild (plural wilds)

1. Alternative form of weald

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Middle Dutch wilt, from Dutch wild, from Old Dutch *wildi, from Proto-Germanic *wilþijaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?lt/

Adjective

wild (attributive wilde, comparative wilder, superlative wildste)

1. wild

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch wilt, from Old Dutch wildi, from Proto-West Germanic *wilþ?, from Proto-Germanic *wilþijaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??lt/
• Hyphenation: wild
• Rhymes: -?lt
• Homophone: wilt

Adjective

wild (comparative wilder, superlative wildst)

1. wild

Inflection

Derived terms

• wildebras
• wildplassen
• wildplukken
• wildvreemd

Descendants

• Afrikaans: wild

Noun

wild n (uncountable)

1. game (food; animals hunted for meat)
2. wildlife
3. wilderness

Derived terms

• jachtwild
• wildwissel

Descendants

• Afrikaans: wild

Anagrams

• lidw.

German

Etymology

From Middle High German wilde, from Old High German wildi, from Proto-West Germanic *wilþ?. Compare Dutch wild, English wild, Danish vild.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?lt/

Adjective

wild (comparative wilder, superlative am wildesten)

1. wild
2. (obsolete) strange

   Synonym: fremd

Declension

Derived terms

• halb so wild
• wilde Ehe
• wildern
• wildfremd
• Wildheit

Related terms

• Wildente, Wildfang, Wildgans, Wildhengst, Wildlachs, Wildschwein

Further reading

• “wild” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “wild” in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols., Leipzig 1854–1961.
• “wild” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “wild” in Duden online

Hunsrik

Etymology

From Central Franconian weld

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vilt/

Adjective

wild (comparative wilder, superlative wildest)

1. wild

Declension

Further reading

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

Low German

Etymology

From Middle Low German wilde, from Old Saxon wildi, from Proto-West Germanic *wilþ?, from Proto-Germanic *wilþijaz.

Compare English, Dutch and German wild, West Frisian wyld, Danish vild.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?lt/

Adjective

wild (comparative willer, superlative willst)

1. wild

Declension

Maltese

Alternative forms

• weld

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (walad).

Pronunciation

Noun

wild m (plural ulied)

1. offspring