The state of being fooled or deceived, or the act of fooling someone.
Derived from 'befool' plus the suffix '-ment' (from Latin '-mentum'), which creates a noun indicating a state, condition, or result. This suffix became productive in Middle English, allowing speakers to nominalize almost any verb.
The '-ment' suffix is incredibly common for creating nouns—it appears in 'government,' 'movement,' and 'management.' English speakers instinctively know they can add '-ment' to almost any verb and create a plausible noun, even if some combinations like 'befoolment' are archaic.
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