silly

• adj.バカ
• n. 愚か者
• n.（愚かな）人名；（ハンガリー語）内気な；（フランス語）愚かな

古英語のsaelig「幸せな、楽しい、屈託のない」から、原語ゲルマン語*seligaz「幸せな」から、PIE*sel「幸せな」から、語源的にはsolace「慰め」と同じ。nice、good、ignorantと比較する。

silly

silly: [OE] In one of the more celebrated semantic volte-faces in the history of the English lexicon, silly has been transformed over the past millennium from ‘blessed, happy’ to ‘stupid’. The word goes back ultimately to a prehistoric West Germanic *s?liga, a derivative of *s?li ‘luck, happiness’. It reached Old English as ges?lig, still meaning ‘happy’, but as it evolved formally in Middle English through seely to silly, its meaning developed via ‘blessed’, ‘pious’, ‘innocent, harmless’, ‘pitiable’, and ‘feeble’ to ‘feeble in mind, foolish’. The related German selig retains its original meaning ‘happy, blessed’.

silly (adj.)

Old English ges?lig "happy, fortuitous, prosperous" (related to s?l "happiness"), from Proto-Germanic *s?ligas (cognates: Old Norse s?ll "happy," Old Saxon salig, Middle Dutch salich, Old High German salig, German selig "blessed, happy, blissful," Gothic sels "good, kindhearted"), from PIE *sele- "of good mood; to favor," from root *sel- (2) "happy, of good mood; to favor" (cognates: Latin solari "to comfort," Greek hilaros "cheerful, gay, merry, joyous").

This is one of the few instances in which an original long e (ee) has become shortened to i. The same change occurs in breeches, and in the American pronunciation of been, with no change in spelling. [Century Dictionary]

The word's considerable sense development moved from "happy" to "blessed" to "pious," to "innocent" (c. 1200), to "harmless," to "pitiable" (late 13c.), "weak" (c. 1300), to "feeble in mind, lacking in reason, foolish" (1570s). Further tendency toward "stunned, dazed as by a blow" (1886) in knocked silly, etc. Silly season in journalism slang is from 1861 (August and September, when newspapers compensate for a lack of hard news by filling up with trivial stories). Silly Putty trademark claims use from July 1949.

1. All kids her age do silly things ; it 's nothing to worry about.

彼女の年齢の子供は馬鹿なことをするので、心配する必要はありません。

2.From what I know of him he doesn 't play silly games.

私の彼に対する理解では、彼はずる賢いことはできない。

3.It is a silly idea and he has botched it.

これは愚かな考えで、彼はすでに事をめちゃくちゃにしてしまった。

4.That silly old bat.I ask you，who 'd she think she was？

あの老いぼれ。私は逆に聞きたいのですが、彼女は誰だと思っていますか。

5.Right now the poor old devil 's drinking himself silly .

今、あの哀れな老いぼれはまたぼんやりしている。