follies

1. 1
   nounplural

   Plural of folly.

   Wealthy landowners once dotted their estates with follies: mock ruins, towers and little temples built purely for show.

   The book is a catalog of the planners' follies, each one costlier than the last.

   Note

   The y of folly turns to ie before the s, as in other nouns ending in a consonant plus y. The plural counts both kinds of folly: a string of foolish decisions, or the mock ruins, towers and temples scattered over the great estates of Britain. Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire carried that tradition into the 21st century with a 30-foot pyramid in its grounds.

2. 2
   noununcountableplural

   A theatrical revue staged on a grand scale, with famous performers, a huge company, and rich costumes and scenery.

   She spent three seasons as a showgirl in the Follies before moving to Hollywood.

   That year's Follies opened with fifty dancers in jeweled gowns descending a golden staircase.

   Note

   The name comes from French folies and behaves like a title more than an ordinary noun. It keeps its plural shape but names a single show, usually capitalized and led by the or by a producer's name: the Ziegfeld Follies remain the best known of all Broadway revues.

3. 3
   verbdialectal

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of folly. Dialectal, meaning follows.

   Note

   Dialect speech has folly for follow, and this is its present-tense form after he, she or it (he follies the river home), where standard English writes follows. Readers will take the spelling for the plural noun unless the sentence makes the verb plain, so outside reported dialect, follows is the form to use.

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