booby

¹ American  

[boo-bee] / ˈbu bi /

noun

• boobies
  plural

1. a stupid person; dunce.

2. a gannet of the genus Sula, having a bright bill, bright feet, or both: some are endangered.

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booby ² American  

[boo-bee] / ˈbu bi /

noun

Slang: Sometimes Vulgar.

• boobies
  plural

1. a female breast.

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booby British  

/ ˈbuːbɪ /

noun

1. an ignorant or foolish person

2. the losing player in a game

3. any of several tropical marine birds of the genus Sula : family Sulidae , order Pelecaniformes (pelicans, cormorants, etc). They have a straight stout bill and the plumage is white with darker markings Compare gannet

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• boobyish
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• boobies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of booby¹

1590–1600; earlier pooby, apparently blend of poop to befool (now obsolete) and baby; booby ¹ ( def. 2 ) perhaps by association with Spanish bobo < Latin balbus stuttering

Origin of booby²

1930–35, probably variant of earlier bubby

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

booby boobies

For the next 38 rounds, the league will be littered with booby traps, slippery slopes, and brutal dismissals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

According to police, often the sites targeted are remote, treacherous even, and reminiscent of an Indiana Jones expedition - minus the booby traps.

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2025

When I asked a senior White House official if they could speak to whether or not similar booby traps were contained in American communication devices I was rebuked; “I can’t speak to that.”

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2024

Then there’s Juno Temple, far removed from her playful “Ted Lasso” character, taking on a Minnesota housewife with a mysterious past — and a skill for setting booby traps — in “Fargo.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2024

“Dis booby I saw was a blue face, mebbe nestin’ out o’ Serranilla Bank, mebbe not.

From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor

The best sequence in the whole film is their encounter with two posh suburbanites who simply can’t imagine they’re in danger, bounding right up to them like the Galapagos Islands’ blue-footed boobies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025

And if vegetation was restored to three quarters of these islands' surface area then that could lead to more than 280,000 breeding pairs of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024

Researchers have observed siblings killing each other—siblicide—in many kinds of birds, including Verreaux’s eagles, ospreys, and blue-footed boobies.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 15, 2024

The Galápagos Islands are famed as a bizarre menagerie of blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises and seafaring iguanas.

From Scientific American ● Nov. 2, 2023

On their annual travels between the foothills and the shore, paleo-Indians seem to have visited the area periodically to feast on the cormorants and boobies that nested on the rocks by the beach.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

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