See doofus in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for doofus meaning in English (5.7kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "sco",
"3": "doof",
"t": "simpleton"
},
"expansion": "Scots doof (“simpleton”)",
"name": "der"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "sco",
"2": "doof"
},
"expansion": "Scots doof",
"name": "cog"
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{
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"2": "nds",
"3": "-"
},
"expansion": "Low German",
"name": "der"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "nds-de",
"2": "doof",
"t": "deaf"
},
"expansion": "doof (“deaf”)",
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},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
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"expansion": "English deaf",
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],
"etymology_text": "Perhaps an alteration of earlier goofus (first attested in the 1920s), due to influence from Scots doof (“simpleton”). Scots doof is derived from Low German doof (“deaf”), which has a secondary sense: \"idiotic\". The Low Saxon word is cognate with English deaf.\nSome have proposed that perhaps dupe played some kind of role in the development of doofus as well.\nGoofus appears to be a fanciful extension of goof, perhaps taking its ending from ignoramus. Goof likely originated as an alteration of the (now obsolete) English goff (\"a clown\")—compare English geek, which originated as an alteration of geck (\"simpleton\")—but any of its history prior to that is up for debate, and difficult to precisely trace.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "doofuses",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "doofi",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "+",
"2": "doofi"
},
"expansion": "doofus (plural doofuses or doofi)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w"
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"parents": [
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"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w"
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"name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms of address",
"parents": [
"Terms of address",
"Terms by usage"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "People",
"orig": "en:People",
"parents": [
"Human",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Stocks Genius or Dot-Com Doofus? – Wired News"
},
{
"text": "Danny is such a doofus!"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Ann Rule, “In the Name of Love”, in In the Name of Love and Other True Cases: Ann Rule's Crime Files Volume 4, page 185",
"text": "Nichols had called Bonilla a doofus who was too damn stupid to realize that he was being taken by a hooker with a convincing sob story.\nEven if Steve was a doofus, Nichols and Rand were quite willing to work for him as long as he had money.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2000, Roger L. Welsch, Love, Sex and Tractors, page 16",
"text": "They weren't excited about acquiring new information; they were relieved to find out they aren't the only doofuses (or maybe the word is \"doofi\") in the world of rusty machinery.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "2005 October 17, Kevin Amorin, Mewsday, quoted in 2007, Troth Wells, T-Shirt, page 14,\nBeing too young to attend a show on Bowie's 1983 Serious Moonlight tour, I did what any underage doofus would do. I bought a concert T-shirt – three-quarter-length blue sleeves, image of Major Tom himself on the front."
},
{
"ref": "2009, B. K. Holway, When Jack Was with Us, page 115",
"text": "\"I never seen so many doofuses in one place!\"\n\"That's doofi, Krakauer. Sorry to correct you.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014, G. Richard Bozarth, Bible Tales for Ages 18 and Up, page 219",
"text": "\"No problem. You get a bimbo babe who's engaged to a doofus who will fall for the virgin birth line and still marry her.[…]However, I don't think a doofus fiancé will be hard to find; there's no shortage of doofuses on the earth.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person with poor judgment and taste; a foolish or silly person."
],
"id": "en-doofus-en-noun-GgbSxU44",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
]
],
"qualifier": "sometimes affectionately humorous",
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang, derogatory, sometimes affectionately humorous) A person with poor judgment and taste; a foolish or silly person."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "doof"
},
{
"word": "doofy"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "dingus#English:_foolish or silly person"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "boob"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "dolt"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "blockhead"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "lowbrow"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "oaf"
},
{
"word": "dufus"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "pöljä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "pöhkö"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "andouille"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "hülye"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "głupek"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈduːfəs/"
},
{
"rhymes": "-uːfəs"
},
{
"audio": "en-us-doofus.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/64/En-us-doofus.ogg/En-us-doofus.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/En-us-doofus.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
],
"text": "Audio (US)"
}
],
"word": "doofus"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "sco",
"3": "doof",
"t": "simpleton"
},
"expansion": "Scots doof (“simpleton”)",
"name": "der"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "sco",
"2": "doof"
},
"expansion": "Scots doof",
"name": "cog"
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{
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"1": "en",
"2": "nds",
"3": "-"
},
"expansion": "Low German",
"name": "der"
},
{
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"2": "doof",
"t": "deaf"
},
"expansion": "doof (“deaf”)",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "deaf"
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"expansion": "English deaf",
"name": "cog"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Perhaps an alteration of earlier goofus (first attested in the 1920s), due to influence from Scots doof (“simpleton”). Scots doof is derived from Low German doof (“deaf”), which has a secondary sense: \"idiotic\". The Low Saxon word is cognate with English deaf.\nSome have proposed that perhaps dupe played some kind of role in the development of doofus as well.\nGoofus appears to be a fanciful extension of goof, perhaps taking its ending from ignoramus. Goof likely originated as an alteration of the (now obsolete) English goff (\"a clown\")—compare English geek, which originated as an alteration of geck (\"simpleton\")—but any of its history prior to that is up for debate, and difficult to precisely trace.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "doofuses",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "doofi",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "+",
"2": "doofi"
},
"expansion": "doofus (plural doofuses or doofi)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "doof"
},
{
"word": "doofy"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English 2-syllable words",
"English countable nouns",
"English derogatory terms",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English nouns with irregular plurals",
"English slang",
"English terms derived from Low German",
"English terms derived from Scots",
"English terms of address",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Rhymes:English/uːfəs",
"Rhymes:English/uːfəs/2 syllables",
"en:People"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Stocks Genius or Dot-Com Doofus? – Wired News"
},
{
"text": "Danny is such a doofus!"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Ann Rule, “In the Name of Love”, in In the Name of Love and Other True Cases: Ann Rule's Crime Files Volume 4, page 185",
"text": "Nichols had called Bonilla a doofus who was too damn stupid to realize that he was being taken by a hooker with a convincing sob story.\nEven if Steve was a doofus, Nichols and Rand were quite willing to work for him as long as he had money.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2000, Roger L. Welsch, Love, Sex and Tractors, page 16",
"text": "They weren't excited about acquiring new information; they were relieved to find out they aren't the only doofuses (or maybe the word is \"doofi\") in the world of rusty machinery.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "2005 October 17, Kevin Amorin, Mewsday, quoted in 2007, Troth Wells, T-Shirt, page 14,\nBeing too young to attend a show on Bowie's 1983 Serious Moonlight tour, I did what any underage doofus would do. I bought a concert T-shirt – three-quarter-length blue sleeves, image of Major Tom himself on the front."
},
{
"ref": "2009, B. K. Holway, When Jack Was with Us, page 115",
"text": "\"I never seen so many doofuses in one place!\"\n\"That's doofi, Krakauer. Sorry to correct you.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014, G. Richard Bozarth, Bible Tales for Ages 18 and Up, page 219",
"text": "\"No problem. You get a bimbo babe who's engaged to a doofus who will fall for the virgin birth line and still marry her.[…]However, I don't think a doofus fiancé will be hard to find; there's no shortage of doofuses on the earth.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person with poor judgment and taste; a foolish or silly person."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
]
],
"qualifier": "sometimes affectionately humorous",
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang, derogatory, sometimes affectionately humorous) A person with poor judgment and taste; a foolish or silly person."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "dingus#English:_foolish or silly person"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈduːfəs/"
},
{
"rhymes": "-uːfəs"
},
{
"audio": "en-us-doofus.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/64/En-us-doofus.ogg/En-us-doofus.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/En-us-doofus.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
],
"text": "Audio (US)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "boob"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "dolt"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "blockhead"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "lowbrow"
},
{
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "oaf"
},
{
"word": "dufus"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "pöljä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "pöhkö"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "andouille"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"word": "hülye"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person with poor judgement and taste",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "głupek"
}
],
"word": "doofus"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.