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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

booby.

A stupid person.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbuːbi/

  1. A stupid person.

  2. Any of various large tropical seabirds from the genera Sula and Papasula in the family Sulidae, traditionally considered to be stupid.

  3. In the game of croquet, a ball that has not passed through the first wicket.

Where this word comes from

17th century. From Spanish bobo, from Latin balbus (“stammering”). (bird): Compare typologically Translingual Morus, German Tölpel, Polish głuptak (akin to głupek), Russian о́луша (óluša) (akin to о́лух (ólux)).

verb/ˈbuːbi/

  1. To behave stupidly; to act like a booby.

    intransitive · rare

  2. To install a booby trap on or at (something); to attack (someone) with a booby trap.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

17th century. From Spanish bobo, from Latin balbus (“stammering”). (bird): Compare typologically Translingual Morus, German Tölpel, Polish głuptak (akin to głupek), Russian о́луша (óluša) (akin to о́лух (ólux)).

adj/ˈbuːbi/

  1. Stupid; unintelligent.

    obsolete · slang
Where this word comes from

17th century. From Spanish bobo, from Latin balbus (“stammering”). (bird): Compare typologically Translingual Morus, German Tölpel, Polish głuptak (akin to głupek), Russian о́луша (óluša) (akin to о́лух (ólux)).

noun/ˈbuːbi/

  1. A breast.

    childish · colloquial
Where this word comes from

From the earlier form bubby.

adj/ˈbuːbi/

  1. Displaying breasts prominently.

    informal

  2. Having large breasts.

    informal
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree English boob Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English booby From boob + -y.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.