Also 8 boobee, 9 boobie. [probably ad. Sp. bobo, used both in the sense of ‘fool’ and ‘booby’ (the bird), of doubtful origin. (The Ger. bube, MHG. buobe, is used frequently in the sense of ‘fool, lubber’; but connection with it is hardly possible: its LG. form is boeve, boef.)]
1. ‘A dull, heavy, stupid fellow: a lubber’ (J.); a clown, a nincompoop.
1599–1603. Patient Grissil, 48. [Welshman loq.] Then, mage a pooby fool of Sir Owen. God’s plude, shall!
1616. Fletcher, Cust. Country, I. ii. Cry, you great booby.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 74. Such a booby as thou art, pretend to dispute the precedence?
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 113, ¶ 3. I bowed like a great surprised Booby.
1776. Johnson, in Boswell (1831), III. 352. We work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 260. I was so awkward a booby that I dared scarcely speak to her.
b. spec. The last boy in a school class, the dunce.
1825. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., i. 4. I never got a single prize, and once sat boobie at the annual public examination.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, III. iv. 75. He was the booby of … grammar school.
c. attrib.
1728. Young, Love Fame, II. (1757), 95. The booby father craves a booby son.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, xxxi. I. 205. Never was there booby squire that more wanted it [improvement].
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., iv. There is not a boy on the booby form but should have been scourged for such a solecism in grammar.
d. To beat the booby: see BEAT v.1 41.
2. A name for different species of Gannet, esp. Sula fusca.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 10. One of the Saylers espying a Bird fitly called a Booby, hee mounted to the top-mast and tooke her. The quality of which Bird is to sit still, not valuing danger.
1707. Sloane, Jamaica, I. 31. Boobies … so called of Seamen because they do not stir from you, but suffer themselves to be catch’d by the hand.
1819. Byron, Juan, II. lxxxii. At length they caught two boobies, and a noddy.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 83. The booby and the noddy sit on the bare rock in startling tameness.
3. Comb., as booby-hatch (Naut.), a smaller kind of companion which lifts off in one piece, in use for merchantmen’s half-decks; booby-hut, a hooded sleigh used in New England; booby-hutch, a small clumsy cart or carriage used in some parts of England; see also quot. 1881; booby-trap, a kind of practical joke in vogue among schoolboys and others (see quots.).
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxxiv. 130. The sky-light and *booby-hatch [are] put on.
1883. Chamb. Jrnl., 141. The after or booby-hatch was covered with a network of lashings.
1820. Connecticut Courant, 14 March, 4/1. A Partner Wanted…. The establishment consists of four hackney coaches, seven chaises, four booby huts, [etc.].
1818. Han. More, Hist. Mr. Fanton, Stories (1830), I. 10. All that multitude of coaches, chariots, chaises, vis-a-vis, *booby-hutches, sulkies, [etc.].
1881. Evans, Leicestersh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Booby-hutch, a hand barrow; a small deep cart; a sentry-box; any movable ‘coop’ or ‘hutch’ of any kind intended for the use of a single human occupant. The carts drawn by dogs before the passing of Martin’s Act were often so called.
1868. Chambers’s Jrnl., 29 Aug., 553/1 A *‘booby-trap.’… It consisted … of books, boots, &c. balanced on the top of a door, which was left ajar, so that the first incomer got a solid shower-bath.
1882. Sat. Rev., 4 Nov., 600. Perpetually on the alert for booby-traps.
