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booby

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Small tropical gannet having a bright bill or bright feet or both.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

boobee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbubi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. colloquial or childish

    A breast.

  2. Small tropical gannet having a bright bill or bright feet or both

  3. An ignorant or foolish person

  4. A stupid person.

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

adjective

  1. informalof clothing or a person

    Displaying breasts prominently.

  2. informal

    Having large breasts.

verb

  1. transitive

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

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (colloquial or childish) A breast.

Used this way, booby is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Casual
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Playful
Usage feel
Casual and conversational

Where it naturally appears

  • Everyday conversation
  • Social media/informal writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Small

footed booby

Various

booby sula

Install

booby trap

Other combinations

booby prizebooby hatchlady boobybrown boobygreat booby

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • booby hatchnounCompound term

    Pejorative terms for an insane asylum.

  • booby prizenounCompound term

    A prize given to one who finishes last in a contest.

  • booby trapnounCompound term

    An explosive mine hidden underground.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.