silly [LME] A medieval Englishman would have been pleased if you described him as silly—you would have been saying he was happy, lucky, or devout. The word is an alteration of earlier seely, from an ancient root meaning ‘luck, happiness’. The Old English sense of seely was ‘happy, fortunate, blessed by God’. This subsequently developed into ‘holy’, then ‘innocent, defenceless, deserving of pity’, at which point, in the later Middle Ages, silly largely took over. Cynical people often regard goodness and simplicity as showing a lack of intelligence, and since the late 16th century the primary sense has been ‘foolish’. In high summer wealthy and important people deserted Victorian London while Parliament and the law courts were in recess. Since the mid 19th century the months of July and August have been the silly season, when British newspapers often print trivia because of a lack of important news. Silly billy was a nickname used for William Frederick, the Duke of Gloucester (1776–1834), who was considered unintelligent, and for King William IV (1765–1837) for his supposed eccentricity.