tomfoolery

On the surface, this is simply the kind of weird tomfoolery you’d expect from the early 1900s.

From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2026

Lacking immediate options, Bea succumbs to Christy’s latest tomfoolery.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026

He told the court this was a case of "skylarking and tomfoolery" that had "gone awry".

From BBC ● Nov. 9, 2023

It’s an inspired piece of comic acting, and a reminder that the serious-minded performer was just as comfortable with broad, “Saturday Night Live”-style tomfoolery.

From New York Times ● Apr. 25, 2023

When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery.

From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee

For 11 seasons, Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules” has followed the triumphs, tragedies and tomfooleries of a group of Hollywood 20-something nobodies who became 30-something wannabes as the show became a reality TV juggernaut.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2024

Such formal prose does not entirely squelch the sort of tomfooleries that Pynchon devotees so eagerly search out.

From Time Magazine Archive

The old greffier, then, came to Paris for the purpose of witnessing one of the sad tomfooleries of that unhappy profligate, who in better times had been his son.

From The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851 by Various

"To church your red tomfooleries never shall go while I have a membership there!"

From The Red Moccasins A Story by Morrison Heady

I’ll have no such profligacy in Romford; poor people shall not be wheedled out of their money by your tomfooleries.

From Curiosities of Impecuniosity by H. G. Somerville