booby
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Blue-footed_Booby_%28Sula_nebouxii%29_-one_leg_raised.jpg/220px-Blue-footed_Booby_%28Sula_nebouxii%29_-one_leg_raised.jpg)
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
17th century. (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Spanish bobo, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin balbus (“stammering”).
Noun
booby (plural boobies)
- A stupid person.
- 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act I, [1]
- The daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful; the son an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled at his mother's apron-string.
- 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1910, Chapter I, p. 74, [2]
- As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.
- 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, "How Lizzie Was Shamed Right Through," [3]
- She knotted our ribbons very tightly so that we should not lose them,—they pulled the little hairs under our curls and made us "ooch" and wriggle. Then Dede gave us little smacks and called us boobies.
- 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act I, [1]
- Any of various large tropical seabirds from the genera Sula and Papasula in the gannet family Sulidae, traditionally considered to be stupid.
- 1638 Herbert, Sir Thomas Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique
- At which time, ſome Boobyes, weary of flight, made our Ship their pearch, an animall ſo ſimple as ſuffers any to take her without feare, as if a ſtupid ſenſe made her careleſſe of danger...
- 1839, Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, Chapter I, [4]
- We found on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds—the booby and the noddy. The former is a species of gannet, and the latter a tern. Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer.
- 1638 Herbert, Sir Thomas Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique
- In the game of croquet, a ball that has not passed through the first wicket.
Synonyms
- (stupid person): Thesaurus:fool
- (large tropical seabird): sulid
Derived terms
- boob
- booby prize
- booby trap
- boobyish
- boobyism
- Abbott's booby, Papasula abbotti
- blue-footed booby, Sula nebouxii
- brown booby, Sula leucogaster
- masked booby, Sula dactylatra
- Nazca booby, Sula granti
- Peruvian booby, Sula variegata
- red-footed booby, Sula sula
- Tasman booby, Lua error in Module:taxlink at line 68: Parameter "noshow" is not used by this template.
Translations
stupid person
|
bird
|
Verb
booby (third-person singular simple present boob, present participle ies, simple past and past participle boobied)
- (rare, intransitive) To behave stupidly; to act like a booby.
- 1824 Washington Irving, "Proclamation", Salmagundi volume 1:
- Who lounge and who loot, and who booby about, / No knowledge within, and no manners without;
- 1824 Washington Irving, "Proclamation", Salmagundi volume 1:
- (transitive) To install a booby trap on or at (something); to attack (someone) with a booby trap.
- 1976 "Weekly Almanac", Jet volume 22, page 44:
- Self Boobied. Donald E. Campbell of Merritt Island, Fla., accidentally tripped on one of the shotgun shell booby traps he had installed
- 1976 "Weekly Almanac", Jet volume 22, page 44:
Etymology 2
From the earlier form bubby.
Noun
booby (plural boobies)
- (colloquial) A woman’s breast.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:breast
- 1934, Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer:
- At ten o’clock she was lying on the divan with her boobies in her hands.
- 1968, “Ain't Got No, I Got Life”, in 'Nuff Said!, performed by Nina Simone:
- Got my neck, got my boobies / Got my heart, got my soul / Got my back, I got my sex
- 2008, Richard Uhlig, Boy Minus Girl:
- She is beyond hot: her long, black, curly hair cascades around her naked boobies!
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
woman’s breast
|
Anagrams
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/uːbi
- English terms derived from Spanish
- English terms derived from Latin
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English verbs
- English terms with rare senses
- English intransitive verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English colloquialisms
- English terms with quotations
- en:Suliform birds