booby n.1
1. a fool, an idiot, a peasant.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Spanish Gypsy III i: Beggars would on cock-horse ride, / And boobies fall a-roaring. | |
| Sparagus Garden II v: I tell thee thou old booby thou. | |
| ‘Great Boobee’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 273: He call’d me Fool, and Country Clown, and great Boobee. | |
| Mercurius Democritus 9 Nov. 644: The Mobbs very honestly pick’d his Pockets[...] and left him (like an Old Boobee) in the lurch. | |
| Love’s Victory 12: A carter, they know how to swaddle their legs In straw – do you not boobies? | |
| Sir Martin Mar-all IV i: A great Booby, an over-grown Oaf. | |
| Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 222: A little domineering Trull, / That made the big-bon’d Booby pull / CoarseHempen-Hurds. | |
| Saints in Uproar in Works (1760) I 74: Such a booby as thou art, [...] dispute [...] with a person of my quality. | |
| ‘Reflections on a Country Corporation’ Writings (1704) 20: Honest Men Precious are as Rubies; / Their May’rs Successively are Boobies, / And Aldermen great Brawny Loobies. | |
| Sir Harry Wildair II i: Here, Aukwardness, go take the Booby’s message. | |
| Beaux’ Strategem II i: She wheadles her booby up to town. | |
| York Spy 25: We came to Conny-Street, where the Babes of Grace were handing about a dead Rat, and ever now and then, tos’d it into the Face of some staring Booby or other. | |
| Provoked Husband I i: His being a Booby; that last Will of an obstinate old Uncle gave it to me. | |
| Polite Conversation 36: Is it possible that she could take that Booby Tom Blunder for Love? | |
| Roderick Random (1979) 27: Zounds! What does the booby stare at? | |
| Englishman in Paris in Works (1799) I 42: mr subtle: How the baggage leer’d! mrs subtle: And the booby gap’d. | |
| Nancy Dawson’s Jests 9: An ignorant booby lived with a young gentleman at Oxford. | |
| Rivals (1776) V ii: ‘O, booby! stab away and welcome’ – says she. | |
| Letters and Prose (1981) II 620: Through the inattention of Booby the Waggoner they got a squeeze that broke six of them. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions . | |
| Observer 4 Dec. 2: Every sagacious mother fits the mitre or the mace to her darling booby. | |
| ‘Sung in the Strangers at Home’ Songster’s Companion 51: When up to London first I came, An aukward country booby, I gap’d, and star’d, and did the same As ev’ry other looby. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Diverting Hist. of John Bull and Brother Jonathan 65: She called him prating gabbler, liquorish glutton [...] codshead booby, noddipeak simpleton, ninnihammer gnatsnapper, and various other names. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Spirit of Irish Wit 248: He meets a staring country booby. | |
| in letter n.d. in Gore Creevey Papers (1948) 232: One booby says it is the Poor Rate – another the Tithe. | |
| Dens of London 34: Hold your tongue, you ass [...] the booby’s mad and should be sent to St. Luke’s. | |
| Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities 103: The boy is a booby [...] why can’t you stand up straight and speak out? | |
| Sam Sly 24 Mar. 3/1: Sam would advise Sam K—n—d, the nobby pressman [...] not to make himself such a ‘soft cake’ [...] Look out, you eccentric booby. | |
| Fast Man 9:1 n.p.: [T]he males are either shopmen, bankers' clerks, or country ‘boobies,’ trying to ‘go the pace’ . | |
| Mary’s Birthday II i: Of course you were a fool to do what you did; any other booby would have done the same. | |
| Places and People 23: A few minute’s delay, during which booby is gruffly and fruitlessly recommended to ‘give up blathering, as that won’t give him his money back’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Term of His Natural Life (1897) 23: He is a stupid booby, though he is Lieutenant Frere. | |
| Reynolds’s Newspaper 27 June 5/2: Eton [...] has turned out some clever men, and an amazing number of boobies . | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Lays of Ind (1905) 7: She wore genuine rubies / Presented by boobies. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Jan. 5/4: Now mount your musty pulpit – thump, / And muddle fat clod-hoppers, / And let some long-eared booby ‘hump’ / The plate about for coppers. | |
| Fifth Form at St Dominic’s (1890) 316: ‘Shut up, you great booby’. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 6 Nov. 91: The biggest booby can spell when he has the letters afore his e’en. | |
| My Brilliant Career 94: I’m not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Truth (Wellington) 11 Jan. 5/8: ‘Truth’ regrets that it is unable to give the blundering boobie’s number. | |
| Card (1974) 247: Every one agreed that he must be an insufferable booby. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 4 Dec. 5/6: The boys who wanted to sign on for the war are quite contented to stay at home and sing ‘Tipperary.’ Boobies! | |
| Marvel 24 July 5: You silly booby, of course I know that! | |
| A Thousand and One Afternoons [ebook] [W]e are what we are—browbeaten, weary-eyed, terribly optimistic units of the boobilariat. | |
| Child of Norman’s End (1967) 509: Why don’t you, you great booby? | |
| Red Roses for Me Act II: An’ here’s another o’ th’ boobies entherin’ now. | |
| ‘You’re an Old Smoothie’ 🎵 I’m a big boobie / I just go nutty in the hands of a boy like you. | |
| ‘Whole Truth’ in New Stories from the Twilight Zone 4: You gotta close the hood, boobie. | |
| Cotters’ England (1980) 127: It sticks in me craw to think she could have made such a booby out of you. | |
| (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 159: Pumping me [...] like I’m some sort of harp booby. | |
| ‘The Euphemisms’ Tom O’Bedlam’s Beauties 42: Simple Simons / Asses, Owls, Donkeys, Mules, / Nincompoops, Wiseacres, Boobies, / Noodles, Numskulls, Gawks, Tomfools. | |
| Guardian G2 22 July 7: Alexander McQueen, the celebrated inventor of bumsters [...] was the most inventive in making women look like boobies. | |
| Daily Mail 30 Aug. 15: He yelled, ‘You’re a f.....g booby!’. |
2. an insane person.
| Green River Rising 226: This is where they used to keep the boobies. I mean them that went insane, guys with syphilis of the brain. |
In derivatives
foolish.
| Boston Blade 10 June n.p.: [T]he religious sentiments of that boobyish grocer. |
foolishness, stupidity.
 | Sketches by Boz (1895) 88: The donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. |
In compounds
1. a prison.
| St. Joseph Gazette-Herald (MS) 6/1The Polk county jail is packed [...] with vagrants, drunks and other prisoners who annually find their way to the ‘booby coop’ during fair week.: |
2. in fig. use, in a state of failure.
| Pittsburgh Press (PA) 6 Apr. 25/3: [C]lubs which mowed down all opposition in Marched finished in the booby-coop in October. |
3. a psychiatric institution.
| Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN) 1 Oct. 8/3: When a man [...] frets and worries himself nearly into a booby coop [etc]. | |
| On Broadway 3 Jan. [synd. col.] What famous magnate is trying to catch his index finger in a booby-coop? | |
| Smith Alumnae Qly 28-29 262/2: The hectic and heavenly home life awaiting us in the booby coop, known fondly as Mensel Mansion. | |
| That Girl from Memphis 372: All I can swear is, either he was a loon or you’re loons [...] and this isn'’ a town, it’s a booby coop. | |
| Power Farming 8: One does not need to go to the booby coop of Brussels to see stupid bureaucracy at work. |
see separate entry.
(US) a lunatic asylum.
| ‘The Humming Bird’ in Sandburrs 26: If it wasn’t for d’ hop I shoots into him wit’ a dandy little hypodermic gun [...] he’d be in the booby house. | |
| Apaches of N.Y. 206: I for one shall retire to th’ booby house an’ devote th’ remainder of an ill-spent life to cuttin’ paper dolls. | |
| Come-on Charley 19: If I knew do you think I’d be standing here talking to a candidate for the booby house? | |
| q. in White House Under Fire (2005) 162: I know of one girl who has been kept seventeen days on water this month in the ‘booby house.’ The same was kept nineteen days on water last year . | |
| Jailed for Freedom 113: Old Whittaker beat up that girl over there just last week and put her in the ‘booby’ house on bread and water for five days. | |
| Man with the Golden Arm 274: In the booby-house you eat every day. | |
| Oh My God Delusion [ebook] I presume at first that she’s ringing to tell me the old dear’s had a sudden meltdown and been corted off to the booby house. |
see separate entry.
(US) the vehicle in which arrested people are transported to the local police station or prison.
| Cutie 46: They had you stretched out on the curbing waiting for the booby wagon. | |
| Atlantic 149 438/1: The next day we were herded into the so-called ‘booby wagon,’ and taken to the offices for examination. | |
| Grand Concourse 220: Well, Captain, you’re ready for the booby wagon? | |
| in DARE. | |
| Evergreen Rev. 17 122: Instead of the strait jacket, therefore, he is wrapped by the men in white in a blanket which [...] suggests the last cloak that Jesus wore. He duly disappears into the booby wagon. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Moses Ascending 116: I even thought of dialling nine nine nine and ask them to send the booby wagon. And then, I tried to pull myself together. |
In phrases
to beat one’s hands against one’s sides to get warm on a cold day.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: cuff to cuff Jones, said of one who is knock kneed, or who beats his sides to keep himself warm in frosty weather; called also beating the booby. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: beat the booby ... slap body to increase circulation. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 201: To warm one’s hands by slapping oneself is to ‘beat the booby’. |