booby
1 Americannoun
-
a stupid person; dunce.
-
a gannet of the genus Sula, having a bright bill, bright feet, or both: some are endangered.
noun
noun
-
an ignorant or foolish person
-
the losing player in a game
-
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
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Croatia embraced the match in 2022 despite having gone one better in 2018 when they were runners-up to France - though Morocco head coach Walid Regragui described it as a "booby prize".
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
It would require combat troops to secure perimeters, engineers with excavating equipment to search through debris and check for mines and booby traps, and special-operations forces with expertise in handling nuclear material.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
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
The descent into the underground lair took longer than I thought it would, partly because the curving staircase was covered in invisible booby traps.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
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
Their modelling shows that if rats were removed from these 25 islands that could result in populations of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies recovering to nearly 24,000 breeding pairs -- an 18-fold increase.
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
Frightful left the penguins and blue-footed boobies to their caves and niches and rounded the island, looking for shelter.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
