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Fool

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In chess, the French call the “bishopfou, and used to represent the piece in a fool’s dress; hence, Regnier says, “Les fous sont aux échecs les plus proches des Rois” (14 Sat.). Fou is a corruption of the Eastern word Fol (an elephant), as Thomas Hyde remarks in his Ludis Orientalibus (i. 4), and on old boards the places occupied by our “bishops” were occupied by elephants.

A Tom Fool. A person who makes himself ridiculous. (See Tom.)

“The ancient and noble family of Tom Fool.”—Quarterly Review.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Follow
Follower
Folly
Fond
Fons et Origo (Latin)
Font
Fontarabia
Food
Food for Powder
Foods and Wines
Fool
Fool [a food]
Fool Thinks
Fool in his Sleeve
Fool or Physician at Forty
Fools
Fool’s Bolt
Fool’s Paradise
Foolscap
Foot
Foot-breadth

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Forty