fool
A purée of fruit with cream or custard.
fool Quick reference
A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition (4 ed.)
... A purée of fruit with cream or...
Fool Quick reference
An A-Z Guide to Shakespeare (2 ed.)
... A type-character, related to the domestic fools kept in royal and noble households. There were wise fools–intelligent men employed as entertainers–and natural fools–idiots kept for amusement. Shakespeare's fools are mostly ‘wise’; they include Touchstone, Feste, Lavache, Thersites, and Lear's Fool. Pioneering studies were Enid Welsford's The Fool ( 1935 ), which covers the type from classical to modern times, and R. H. Goldsmith's Wise Fools in Shakespeare ( 1955 ). See also Clown...
Fool Reference library
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (19 ed.)
.... As the fool thinks, so the bell clinks See under as . Court fools See under court . Feast of Fools, The See under feast . Flannelled fools See under flannel . Gooseberry fool See under gooseberry . Paradise of fools, The See under paradise . Play the fool, To See under play . Ship of fools, The See under ship . Tomfool See under tom . Wisest fool in Christendom, The See under wise...
fool Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (4 ed.)
... not suffer fools gladly : see suffer . there’s no fool like an old fool the foolish behaviour of an older person seems especially foolish as they are expected to think and act more sensibly than a younger one. proverb you could have fooled me! used to express cynicism or doubt about an assertion. informal...
fool Quick reference
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...fool [ME] The root of fool is Latin follis , which originally meant ‘bellows, windbag’, and came to mean ‘an empty-headed person’, in the same way that windbag (LME, but E19th in this sense) does in English. The use of fool to mean a jester or clown also goes back to the Middle Ages. People in the 16th century seem to have been particularly aware of the ways in which someone may come to grief through lack of wisdom, especially in their dealings with others. A fool and his money are soon parted , a fool at forty is a fool indeed , and there’s no fool...
fool Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... A fool was a person without a proper gift of intelligence (Luke 12: 20; Rom. 1: 21; Eph. 5: 15) but also one who was impious and blasphemous, as usually in the OT (e.g. Ps. 14: 1). Nevertheless in Matt. 5: 22 Jesus condemns the expression of contempt implied by rebuking someone as a fool...
fool Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
... . Courtly society in medieval Ireland, Scotland, and Wales included jesters, buffoons, and mimics for entertainment; as conventional figures in early narratives they often, like King Lear's Fool, speak more wisely than their masters. Lomna reports the adultery of Fionn mac Cumhaill 's wife. Mac Glas, fool of Máel Fothartaig , is killed with his master. Do Dera tries to save his master, Lugaid mac Con , by impersonating him in battle. Irish distinguishes between the professional fool [OIr. drúth ] and the more modern person of poor judgement ...
fool Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (4 ed.)
... A character in English drama. The fool has a variety of origins, from the medieval court jester to the licensed clown of the Feast of Fools. He has numerous incarnations in Shakespeare: as the simpleton (the clown in The Winter's Tale ), the rogue (Autolycus, also in The Winter's Tale ), and the wise court jester (the Fool in King Lear ), licensed to speak freely, however satirically or disrespectfully. He is also related to the Arlecchino of the commedia dell'arte . In Shakespeare's company the fools' parts were played by William Kemp until his...
fool Reference library
The Companion to Theatre and Performance
... A comic entertainer, sometimes physically deformed, whose behaviour is the product of real or pretended mental deficiency. An Egyptian record of about 2200 bc mentions such a figure, and fools have been recorded in many cultures, variously associated with luck, religious sacrifice, poetic power, clairvoyance, and wisdom. In Europe, professional fools or jesters flourished from about 1300 to about 1500 as official household or court fools, or more generally as entertainers in taverns and brothels, or as civic functionaries. The conventional dress of a...
fool Reference library
Ronald W. Vince
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
... A comic entertainer, sometimes physically deformed, whose behaviour is the product of real or pretended mental deficiency. An Egyptian record of about 2200 bc mentions such a figure, and fools have been recorded in many cultures, variously associated with luck, religious sacrifice, poetic power, clairvoyance, and wisdom. In Europe, professional fools or jesters flourished from about 1300 to about 1500 as official household or court fools, or more generally as entertainers in taverns and brothels, or as civic functionaries. The conventional dress of a...
fool Quick reference
The Diner’s Dictionary (2 ed.)
... Gastronomically speaking, a fool is a cold dessert made from puréed or stewed fruit mixed with cream or custard . In theory it can be made with any fruit, but the Victorians seem to have been inordinately fond of gooseberry fool: Edward Lear celebrated it in a limerick: ‘There was an old person of Leeds, / whose head was infested with beads; / she sat on a stool, / and ate gooseberry fool, / which agreed with that person of Leeds’; and that is the fruit which fool is most commonly associated with today. The first known recipe for gooseberry fool is given...
fool (in Psalms) Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...fool (in Psalms) In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, Psalms 14 and 53 (13 and 52 according to some numberings) open with the line (in the New Revised Standard Version), ‘Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God”.’ These verses are sometimes cited as proof for the existence of atheists within ancient Hebrew society. Rabbinic and early Christian commentators, however, commonly regarded the ‘fools’ to be believers, albeit ones whose immoral actions contradicted their professed belief in God ( see practical atheism ). In either case, the two psalms do...
Fool Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
... , licensed buffoon of the medieval Feast of Fools , later an important member of the sociétés joyeuses of medieval France, not to be confused with the Court Fool . The traditional costume of the Fool, who was associated with such folk festivals as the morris dance and the mumming play (especially the Wooing Ceremony), was a hood with horns or ass's ears, and sometimes bells, covering the head and shoulders; a parti-coloured jacket and trousers, usually tight fitting; and sometimes a tail. He carried a marotte or bauble, either a replica of a fool...
fool Reference library
The Oxford Companion to English Literature (7 ed.)
... A character appearing in various forms in English drama, most notably in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The fool has a variety of origins, from the medieval court jester to the licensed clown of the Feast of Fools . He has numerous incarnations in Shakespeare: as the simpleton (the clown in The Winter's Tale ), the rogue (Autolycus, also in The Winter's Tale ), and the wise court jester (the Fool in King Lear ), licensed to speak freely, however satirically or disrespectfully. He is also related to the Arlecchino of the commedia...
fool Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Food (3 ed.)
... a simple mixture of mashed fruit, raw or cooked as appropriate, with whipped cream, has long been a popular British dessert. It is a dish particularly suited to being made with acid northern fruits: gooseberries, raspberries, rhubarb, damsons, etc. The name ‘fool’ is thought to be derived from the French fouler (to mash). So it is reasonable to suppose that the idea of mashed fruit was there from the start. However, one of the earliest fools, Norfolk fool, popular during the 17th century, contained no fruit. It was a rich boiled custard made with...
Court Fool Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
...Fool , member of the Royal Household, also known as the King's Jester, not to be confused with the humbler Fool of the folk festivals . His origin has been variously traced to the Court of Haroun-al-Raschid, to the classical dwarf-buffoon, and to the inspired madman of Celtic and Teutonic legend. At some point in his career he adopted the parti-coloured costume of his rival, which led to confusion between the two types, but the Court Fool has nothing else in common with the folk tradition, whose Fool is nearer to the clown . Shakespeare's Fools derive...
fool file Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Internet (4 ed.)
... file A mythical file of very stupid remarks issued by users of the Internet. An example of this would be when one user wishes to lambast another user, saying that a remark deserves to be placed in the fool...
Fool, The (1975) Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Plays (2 ed.)
..., The Author: Edward Bond Date/place of 1st performance: 1975 , London Date of 1st publication: 1976 Genre: Drama in 8 scenes Setting/time of action: East Anglia and London, 1815– c. 1845 Cast: 37m, 7f The poet John Clare is one of the mummers performing their play at Christmas for Lord Milton and his guests. The Parson urges the mummers to ‘work for the common good’ and accept a cut in wages. Clare fondles his fiancée Patty but then goes into the house with the kitchen-maid Mary. Milton starts to drain the fens and clear the woodland....
Fool, The (1922) Reference library
The Oxford Companion to American Theatre (3 ed.)
..., The ( 1922 ) , a melodrama by Channing Pollock .[Times Square Theatre, 360 perf.] Parishioners at New York's Church of the Nativity are disturbed by their new assistant rector, Daniel Gilchrist ( James Kirkwood ), who has condemned the fancy Christmas decorations. He has also read contributors to the church a lecture on the rich man entering heaven, and spoken of “ill gotten gains.” As if that were not enough, he has welcomed poor worshipers into the upper‐class church and has even given his own overcoat to an impoverished Jew who was shivering in the...
Perfect Fool, The Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Music
...Perfect Fool, The . Opera in one act by Holst to his own libretto (London, 1923 ). The orchestral suite of the ballet music was first performed in 1920...
