fool
n 1: a person who lacks good judgment [syn: {sap}, {saphead}, {muggins},
{tomfool}]
2: a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of [syn:
{chump}, {gull}, {mark}, {patsy}, {fall guy}, {sucker}, {soft
touch}, {mug}]
3: a professional clown employed to entertain a king or
nobleman in the middle ages [syn: {jester}, {motley fool}]
v 1: make a fool or dupe of [syn: {gull}, {befool}]
2: spend frivolously and unwisely; "Fritter away one's
inheritance" [syn: {fritter}, {frivol away}, {dissipate},
{shoot}, {fritter away}, {fool away}]
3: fool or hoax; "The immigrant was duped because he trusted
everyone"; "You can't fool me!" [syn: {gull}, {dupe}, {slang},
{befool}, {cod}, {put on}, {take in}, {put one over}, {put
one across}]
4: indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back
to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" [syn: {horse
around}, {arse around}, {fool around}]
Source: WordNet® 2.0
fool n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who
habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and
cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally
used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native
incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish
experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too effectively in
executing their errors. See also {cretin}, {loser}, {fool file}.
The Algol 68-R compiler used to initialize its storage to the
character string "F00LF00LF00LF00L..." because as a pointer or as a
floating point number it caused a crash, and as an integer or a
character string it was very recognizable in a dump. Sadly, one day a
very senior professor at Nottingham University wrote a program that
called him a fool. He proceeded to demonstrate the correctness of this
assertion by lobbying the university (not quite successfully) to forbid
the use of Algol on its computers. See also {DEADBEEF}.
Source: The Jargon File
