Background of 'Tomfool'

[Tom]

Hi

I am shocked to see the meaning of the word 'Tomfool'! Could you please tell me why tom only? Any specific background about some Tom? Could I use this word as a noun?

Tom

[Conchita]

Such a 'Conchitafoolery' isn't it?

tomfool
"buffoon, clown," 1650, from M.E. Thom Foole, personification of a mentally deficient man (1338), see Tom + fool. Tomfoolery is recorded from 1812.

Tom
familiar shortening of masc. proper name Thomas, used by 1377 as a type of a nickname for a common man. Applied 17c. as a nickname for several exceptionally large bells. Short for Uncle Tom in the sense of "black man regarded as too servile to whites" is recorded from 1959. Tom Walker, U.S. Southern colloquial for "the devil" is recorded from 1833. Tom and Jerry is first attested 1828 in many extended senses, originally the names of the two chief characters (Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn) in Pierce Egan's "Life in London" (1821); the U.S. cat and mouse cartoon characters debuted 1940 in "Puss Gets the Boot." Tom Thumb (1579) was a miniature man in popular tradition before P.T. Barnum took the name for a dwarf he exhibited.

(Online Etymology Dictionary)

You might also want to have a look at this:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/13/messages/1309.html

[Alan]

Hi Tom,

Apparently in the 16th century there was someone called Thomas Skelton, who was a jester with a reputation for playing jokes and tricks and it is suggested that he started the whole story as Tom is a shortened form of Thomas. A jester or fool was like a private confidant of someone like a king, whose job was to keep the King in good spirits. He was known as both fool and jester. There is a famous example in Shakespeare's King Lear of a Fool. It's a sort of contradiction because the fool was usually a very quickwitted and clever person in the royal court but the word has been downgraded and now means a stupid person. So we have expressions like a Tomfool of an idea, which means a very silly idea. There is also the word 'tomfoolery' suggesting silly behaviour.

A
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story A funny thing happened...

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

Did you know that we also refer to a male cat as a "tomcat"?
My tomcat is quite fond of tomfoolery.

Amy
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Pond969]

HA HA Yankee .... I don't suppose you're cat's acitvities are the same as the royal entertainer.... at least not publically!