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Booby   Listen
noun
Booby  n.  (pl. boobies)  
1.
A dunce; a stupid fellow.
2.
(Zool.)
(a)
A swimming bird (Sula fiber or Sula sula) related to the common gannet, and found in the West Indies, nesting on the bare rocks. It is so called on account of its apparent stupidity unafraid of men, it allows itself to be caught by a simple and undisguised approach. The name is also sometimes applied to other species of gannets; as, Sula piscator, the red-footed booby; and Sula nebouxii, the blue-footed booby.
(b)
A species of penguin of the antarctic seas.
Booby hatch
(a)
(Naut.), a kind of wooden hood over a hatch, readily removable.
(b)
, an insane asylum. (Colloq.)
Booby hut, a carriage body put upon sleigh runners. (Local, U. S.)
Booby hutch, a clumsy covered carriage or seat, used in the eastern part of England.
Booby prize, an award for the poorest performance in a competition; hence, metaphorically, the recognition of a strikingly inferior or incompetent performance.
Booby trap
(a)
, a schoolboy's practical joke, as a shower bath when a door is opened.
(b)
, any concealed device causing surprise or injury when a usually harmless object is touched; in military operations, typically containing an explosive charge.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Booby" Quotes from Famous Books



... on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds — the booby and the noddy. The former is a species of gannet, and the latter a tern. Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer. The booby lays her eggs on the bare rock; but the tern makes a very simple ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... far as I could discover, each had some sort of a knife, and a few had hatchets, or tomahawks. To my great regret, I saw that three or four were immediately stationed at the companion-way, aft, and as many more at the booby-hatch, forward. This was effectually commanding the only two passages by which the officers and men would be likely to ascend, in the event of their attempting to come on deck. It is true, the main hatch, as well ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... the devil of a ha-penny could I ever screw out of him beyond principal and legal interest at five per cent; and, now he's made his forten, he's ashamed of the name that made it for him—a mean-spirited, henpecked booby, that cast his name to the dogs to please a silly wife's vanity. He have my property! I rather calculate not! And so, having disposed of all they, I think I'll leave my estates to some of brother Thomas's sons. Now, Grapple, mind me; this is how I'll have ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... right," said Elbridge, opening the door of the booby, and gently bundling Northwick into it. "I could come just's easy as not. I thought you'd ride better in the booby; it's a little mite chilly for the cutter." The stars seemed points of ice in the freezing sky; the broken snow clinked like charcoal around Elbridge's ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... success, though they seem to have been hardly able to comprehend how their naughty idle Bobby had become so great a man. His father had been singularly hard of belief. Not until the news of the defence of Arcot arrived in England was the old gentleman heard to growl out that, after all, the booby had something in him. His expressions of approbation became stronger and stronger as news arrived of one brilliant exploit after another; and he was at length immoderately fond ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... drawing-room, down through the berths of Pullman cars and river steamboats, to an open-air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack canoe, the back of a horse, the omnipresent buggy, a bob-sleigh, a "cutter," a "booby," four-horse "stages," river, lake, and sea-going steamers, horse-cars, cable-cars, electric cars, mountain elevators, narrow-gauge railways, and the Vestibuled Limited Express from New ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... bar the booby Bettesworth, Tho' half-a-crown outpays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... yourself, and must acknowledge, that I'm soon likely to confer distinction and preeminence upon the poor illiterate, but honest creatures, with whom I am associated in the bonds of blood-relationship. If I were a dunce, or a booby, or a leather head, the case might be different; but you yourself are well acquainted with my talents of logic and conthroversy; an' I have sound rasons and good authority, which I could quote, if necessary, for proving that nothing increases the weight of the brain, and accelerates to ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... warned by a judgement so tragic, And wipe yourselves cleanly with all books of magic— Hark! hark! it is Dives! 'Hold your Bother, you Booby! I am burnt ashy white, and you yet ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... to release the muslin prisoner. "Rusticity becomes you so that if I were a king, you should dance with me the livelong day. But I'll not grumble if only you'll dance with me as soon as the candles are lit! Last night you were all for that booby, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... your resolution has really come back, after that shocking outbreak of desperation on board the steamer (natural enough, I own, under the dreadful provocation laid on you), you will want no further persuasion from me to try this experiment. Only to think of how things turn out! If the other young booby had not jumped into the river after you, this young booby would never have had the estate. It really looks as if fate had determined that you were to be Mrs. Armadale, of Thorpe Ambrose; and who can control his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... - Under cloak of confession and a most spotless conscience, a lady, enamoured of a young man, induces a booby friar unwittingly to provide a means to the entire gratification of ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Mellaire. He had slipped down the booby hatch into the big after-room and thence through the hallway to my room. He entered noiselessly, on clumsy tiptoes, and pressed his finger warningly to his lips. Not until he was beside my bunk did he speak, and then it was ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... "Well, booby," sneered the bird, "and under the grass is wet moss, which, if you make a hole in it, will fill with water. Why, I'd do it myself, in a moment, only your claws are better suited for the purpose than mine. Set about it at once!" it ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... shinney, so he always stayed with the girls at recess, which was often very inconvenient when Elizabeth and Rosie wanted to teeter by themselves or stay indoors and tell secrets. Then, too, John and the Pretender teased her unmercifully. They called her beau "Booby" Oliver and said he should have been a girl. She took his part valiantly, but she did wish he wouldn't say "papa" and "mamma," it ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... remarkable which inclines us to esteem persons and things not by their real value, or even by our own judgment, so much as by the opinion of others, who are often very incompetent judges. Dick Middlemas had been urged forward, in his suit to Menie Gray, by his observing how much her partner, a booby laird, had been captivated by her; and she was now lowered in his esteem, because an impudent low-lived coxcomb had presumed to talk of her with disparagement. Either of these worthy gentlemen would have been as capable of enjoying the ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... of Cloten, the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with much humour and quaint extravagance. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her—"Whose love-suit ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... booby! He must fall in love, indeed! And now he's naught but sentimental looks And sentences, pronounced 'twixt breath and voice! And attitudes of tender languishment! Nor can I get from him the name of ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... when he saw her on the point of hurling at him the chamber utensil which she had just seized. "If it is the devil who has offended thee with his words," she said, "resent the insult with words likewise, jackass that thou art, but if I have offended thee myself, learn, stupid booby, that thou must respect me, and be off ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Highbury or Cranford there might be scandal about a young bachelor's very late visits to a pretty widow. But the adult portion of the population, at any rate, would hardly lay booby-traps to trip him in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... Between Booby Island and Cape Wessel, which we passed in sight of on the 3rd, we had thick gloomy weather, with the wind between South and East-South-East; and, after rounding the Cape had some heavy rain, in which the mercury, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... thousand years of this sport, I suppose Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, "What good am I doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might as well shut my incantations up, and allow things to ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... understanding could only be seized at close quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband—eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Stuttgart, possessed a similar weapon, the blade of which bore the syllables Biades. It seemed that Karl, even without the symbolic help of the daggers, had again found the complement of his own 'Alkibiadesian' individuality, this time in the young booby Hornstein, and it is very probable that the two, whilst in Sion, had imagined they were acting an 'Alkibiadesian' scene before Socrates. His comedy showed me that his artistic talent was fortunately far better than his society manners. To this day I regret that this decidedly ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... scouts have to find that Coon, each looking about for himself. As soon as one sees it, he says nothing, but sits down. Each must find it for himself, then sit down silently, until all are down. Last down is the "booby"; first down is the winner; and the winner has the right to place the Coon the second time, if the Guide does not ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... birch. This piteous wretch, with his fatuous airs of sharpness, was exactly the kind of game that the bookmakers cared to fly at; he was cajoled and stimulated; he was trapped at every turn; the vultures flapped round him; and there was no strong, wise man to give the booby counsel or to drag him by main force from his fate. There was no pity for the boy's youth; he was a mark for every obscene bird of prey that haunts the Turf; respectable betting men gave him fair play, though they exacted their pound of flesh; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as long ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... pretty this—upon my word! What in heaven's name is the matter with you all? Here has been that blundering booby William, pushed his father and me down-stairs, and Martha seems the only one that would care a farthing if we had both ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after much sugar-coated deception, and many premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patient angling in the matrimonial pool, one lands a stingaree and the other a bull-head. One expects to capture a demi-god who hits the earth only in high places; the other to wed a wingless angel who will make his Edenic bower one long-drawn sigh of ecstatic bliss. The result is ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... "Go, booby; do you think I am a child?" his master retorted angrily. "I've my sword and can use it. I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... the terrible struggle between Northerners and Southerners, artillerymen were in great request; the Union newspapers published their inventions with enthusiasm, and there was no little tradesman nor naif "booby" who did not bother his head day and night with calculations about impossible ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... [Without.] Ha! find her, booby; thou huge lump of nothing, I'll bore thine eyes ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... or female, in order to be worshiped as such? Let us admire the diversity of the tastes of mankind, and the oldest, the ugliest, the stupidest and most pompous, the silliest and most vapid, the greatest criminal, tyrant, booby, Bluebeard, Catherine Hayes, George Barnwell, among us, we need never despair. I have read of the passion of a transported pickpocket for a female convict (each of them being advanced in age, repulsive ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... arose and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to wish you health and happiness, and may you grow better and wiser in advancing years, bearing in mind that outward appearances are deceitful. You mistook me, from my dress, for a country booby; while I, from the same superficial cause, thought you were ladies and gentlemen. The mistake has been mutual." Just then Governor Caleb Strong entered and called to Mr. Whitman, who, turning to the dumfounded company, said: "I wish ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... women. He claimed for woman more even than she for herself. He said: "Women are generally more competent to vote than their husbands, and sisters better fitted to be judges than their brothers, the mother more capable of wisely exercising the elective franchise than her booby son." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... reproduction of the Barye lion, or the well-known Perry picture of a lion, a Dresden-china lamb or shepherdess, and a pussy-cat plate, pincushion, or paper weight are suggestions for first prizes, and four little tin horns painted green may be given as booby prizes to the four "greenhorns" who have the ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt

... quiet creature as a rule," said the horse—"very patient with people—don't make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just couldn't bear ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... care of you. Here, Humphrey, I leave this lady in your care. Now you may walk about the garden, Miss Pert; but Humphrey shall go with you wherever you go. So mind, honest Humphrey, I am obliged to go abroad for a little while; let no one but yourself come near her; don't be shame-faced, you booby, but keep close to her. And now, miss, let your lieutenant or any of his crew come near you if ...
— St. Patrick's Day • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... know why—I just felt like spending a little while in the society of the geniuses. I was thirsty for music ... one of those moody whims of the olden days. Perhaps the presentiment that you were coming: the thought of those afternoons when you were upstairs, sitting like a booby in the corner, listening to me.... But don't jump to the conclusion, my dear deputy, that everything here is mere play—just chickens and the simple life. No, sir! I have turned my leisure to serious ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... they could handle. She was sixty feet over all, and the cross beams of her crown deck had not been weakened by deck-houses. The only breaks—and no beams had been cut for them—were the main cabin skylight and companionway, the booby hatch for'ard over the tiny forecastle, and the small hatch aft that let down into ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... she cried. "Oh, that's bully. You must enter the tournament—Mother, did you remember about the cup and the—you know? What we talked of for the booby?" ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... cruel are the parents Who riches only prize, And to the wealthy booby Poor Woman sacrifice! Meanwhile, the hapless Daughter Has but a choice of strife; To shun a tyrant Father's hate— Become ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... greenwood now; time was when a good fellow could live here like a mitred abbot, set aside the rain and the white frosts; he had his heart's desire both of ale and wine. But now are men's spirits dead; and this John Amend-All, save us and guard us! but a stuffed booby to scare crows withal." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that girl over there just last week and put her in the 'booby' house on bread and water ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... sword, with a view to frighten us; but we refused to stir till we were ready, and some of our company called him a damned lobster backed ——, for wishing to drive us away before every one had his drink. The man was perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last the booby did what he ought to have done at first—forced the beer-seller to drive off his cart. But it is the fate of British officers of higher rank than this one, to think and act at last of that which they ought to have thought, and acted upon at first. They are no match ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... do assure, is not the fact. I was a fool about Madame Lange, I own; but what is a man not when he is in love? But I did love her truly, and even now I feel that she is not indifferent to me; it is perhaps, therefore, fortunate that her husband is a jealous booby and never leaves her, so that I seldom have an opportunity of seeing her. Believe me when I say that old Madame Weber is a very obliging person, and I cannot serve her in proportion to her kindness to me, for indeed I have not ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... when she capsized, by the only four apertures her construction possessed. These were the companion-way, or cabin-doors; the sky-light; the main-hatch, or the large inlet amid-ships, by which cargo went up and down; and the booby-hatch, which was the counterpart of the companion-way, forward; being intended to admit of ingress to the forecastle, the apartment of the crew. Each of these hatch-ways, or orifices, had the usual defences of "coamings," strong frame-work around their margins. ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... 1742), actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according to Davies, he was selected by Highmore, the patentee, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... course, stood his own watch, and chose Langley and myself as part of it. The mate generally kept us upon the quarter-deck with him, and many were the cozy confabs we used to hold, many the choice cigars we used to smoke upon that handy loafing-place, the booby-hatch, many the pleasant yarns we used to spin while pacing up and down the deck, or leaning against the rail of the companion. As I have said, Mr. Stewart was a delightful watch-mate—and Bill Langley and I used to love him dearly, and none the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... Porphyrius, in speaking of the old woman, simply say 'At her place?' Why did Zametoff observe that I had spoken very sensibly? Why their peculiar manner?—yes, it is this manner of theirs. How is it possible that all this cannot have struck Razoumikhin? The booby never notices anything! But I seem to be feverish again! Did Porphyrius give me a kind of wink just now, or was I deceived in some way? The idea is absurd! Why should he wink at me? Perhaps they ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... late? No? Fancy, Princess—that great booby, Izzet Bey, must stop me at the club, and I exceedingly pressed to dress and entirely out of humour with all Turks. 'Eh bien, mon vieux!' said he in his mincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming up the Balkan boilers with Austrian pine. But ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... poor mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions nor the respect which a son owes to a mother. Jean-Jacques ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... you, you blundering booby," said my guardian, very sternly, "once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is prepared ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... because he is in loco regis. If the paper proceeds, we shall easily discover which of these two gentlemen is the champion. In the mean time, the first paper leads our suspicions more towards Izard than Adams, from the circumstance of style, and because he is quite booby enough not to see the injury he would do to the President by ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and unease you too. The idiot! the patch! the slave! the booby! The property fit only to be beaten For your morning exercise? your football, or Th'unprofitable lump of flesh, your drudge, Can now anatomize you, and lay open All your black plots; level with the earth Your hill of pride, and shake, Nay pulverize, the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... Nunez characterized the four judges of the Audience in a manner more concise than complimentary, - a boy, a madman, a booby, and a dunce! "Decia muchas veces Blasco Nunez, que le havian dado el Emperador, i su Consejo de Indias vn Moco, un Loco, un Necio, vn Tonto por Oidores, que asi lo havian hecho como ellos eran. Moco era Cepeda, i llamaba Loco a Juan Alvarez, i Necio a Tejada, que ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... Torres Strait, which he called Endeavour Strait, discovered and named the Wallis Islands, situated in the middle of the south-west entrance to Booby Island, and Prince of Wales Island, and steered for the southern coast of New Guinea, which he followed until the 3rd of September ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... rotten sort of tournament that was carried on in that fashion; and your prize would have been no better than a booby-prize," persisted Christopher. ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... Nando's 'twill but cost you half a groat; The Redford school at three-pence is not dear, Sir; At White's—the stars instruct you for a tester. 21 But he, whom nature never meant to share One spark of taste, will never catch it there:— Nor no where else; howe'er the booby beau Grows great with Pope, and ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... inside, he examined the control room with care. At last, satisfied that no booby traps were set, he crossed to the control panel. He located the communicator controls, ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... place to commit suicide. He'd only had a short introductory course, in one semester, in military and protective robotics, just enough to give him a foundation if he wanted to go into that branch of the subject later. It was also enough to give him an idea of the sort of booby-traps that tunnel could be filled with. He knew what he'd have put into it if he'd been ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... tried of putting him at the top of his class, and it was curious to note the rapidity with which he gravitated to the inevitable bottom. The youth was given up by his teachers as an incorrigible dunce—one of them pronouncing him to be a "stupendous booby." Yet, slow though he was, this dunce had a sort of dull energy of purpose in him, which grew with his muscles and his manhood; and, strange to say, when he at length came to take part in the practical business of life, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... prove to be a false alarm, an absurd scare, and then he, who based his whole life and his whole reputation on the theory that nothing ever could induce him to make himself ridiculous or to become bad form, might turn out to be the ludicrous hero of a country-house 'booby-trap.' To do him justice, he feared this result much more than the other. But he wanted to test himself—to find himself out. All this thinking had not as yet delayed his movements by a single step, but now he paused for one short second, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... in Jennings' breast, so he ordered Dauss to the booby hatch for a spanking and sent Coveleski to ladle out the pitch stuff. The young southpaw was equally generous in intent and would surely have forced in enough runs to give the Sox the game, but two of the visitors absolutely refused to accept that kind of a gift and got out. They ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... a nickel on the play, you blundering booby," cried Mr. Bingle heartily. "That is still to come. I ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... horses and pack horses, we have another four-footed animal in our outfit—a large black dog of seeming little intelligence, to which we have given the name of "Booby." He is owned by "Nute," one of our colored boys, who avers that he is a very knowing dog, and will prove himself so before our journey is ended. The poor beast is becoming sore-footed, and his sufferings excite our sympathy, and we are trying to devise some kind of shoe or ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... with his head plastered up. He's the greatest booby living, and would positively have come here all the same, but I told him I'd strap him down with cords if he attempted it. A pretty object he'd have looked, staggering through the streets, with his head big enough for two, and ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... his ability, he could not make me love him. I'm not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There's not enough in him to win my love. I'll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I'm not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there's no fear of that! I ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... about to take place. The Duke of Wellington will be back from Paris time enough to meet the King. I do not believe one word of Lord Liverpool's going out. He certainly has not done the thing well as to the funeral; but the great blame is in that booby, Sir R. Baker. Lady C—— has been living with the King at the Phoenix Park, and he has never slept out but at Slane Castle. The Royal yacht went to Holyhead to take her over to Dublin; the Admiralty yacht took the Princess Augusta to Ostend. The latter does not go to Hanover; it is said the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... prudery and over-righteousness, he hastily commenced his novel of Joseph Andrews. This Joseph is represented as the brother of Pamela,—a simple country lad, who comes to town and finds a place as Lady Booby's footman. As Pamela had resisted her master's seductions, he is called upon to oppose the vile attempts of his ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... that the poor beggar applied for shelter at the Municipal lodging-house in New York and told them a long tale of Barr having robbed him of his invention. They sized him up as being just another of those inventor bugs and so sent him to the booby hatch in Bellevue." ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... bobo" means much the same as our word "booby," therefore this was not a very soothing manner of beginning her information. To Isabelita's surprise, however, Timoteo answered only "Yes," and, coming in, put his one book carefully away, and then went forth for the cow, as he ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... two kernels now I take, This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne; But Booby Clod soon falls upon the ground, A certain token that his love's unsound; While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last; Oh! were his lips to ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... devour me from head to foot in a moment; but otherwise he did what I told him. 'I can deny you nothing,' he whispered; 'I promise.' He went on and left me. I couldn't help thinking at the time how that brute and booby Armadale would have spoiled everything ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... the beauty of this college, I run a close race for the booby prize! Bit of a handicap that, if you care about popularity. This Sunday afternoon now! they'll all be buzzing round you like so many flies, while I do wallflower in a corner. Nonsense to say that looks don't count! So far as I can see, the ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... waiting for our filet to be prepared Indiman wrote a brief note and had it despatched by messenger; it was addressed, as he showed me, to Madame L. Hernandez,—Division Street. "I'm not going to have that booby upset the apple-cart for a second time," he said, savagely. "Now we shall have to wait for at least ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... but over light-headed: a Booby who had fine legs. How these first courted, billed, and cooed, according to nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged and blew one another ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so short a time. This morning he amazed me. He knew the right people and did the right things—carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself. To-night he is simply a booby." ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... until the ship arrived at New York; my being there was only known to two persons on board, the steward and the cook, both colored persons. When the vessel was docked in the pier thirty-eight, North river, I managed to make my way through the booby hatch on to the deck, and was not seen by the watchman on board who supposed I was a stranger, or what they call a "River Thief." I made a jump to escape over the bow and fell into the river; but ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green

... Bacon could retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby lord; And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, Slides to a scrivener and city knight. Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fix'd, and our ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... who should also have his joke upon us; for as we passed, he turned to my companion, whom he addressed as a male personage—"And why, you old villain, do you drive your cub to the 'island' pinioned in such a manner,—give him the use of his arms, you sinner!"—thus intimating that I was a booby son of her's in leading-strings. The old lady looked at him with a very peculiar expression of countenance; I thought she smiled, but never did a smile appear to me so pregnant with bitterness and cursing scorn. "Ay," said she, "there goes the well-fed heretic, that neither fasts ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... another couple; for you must not fancy that yours is the only wedding on which today's sun is to shine. A young clown, finding his time lag heavily in the house with an ugly old maid, for want of something better to do did what makes the booby think himself bound in honour to turn her into his wife. They must both be drest out by this time; so don't let us miss the sight; for doubtless it ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... been done without the knowledge of Mrs Bargrove. Agnes and Lucy then change situations; and I with that cub, Peter Bargrove. Very pleasant indeed! the former is not of much consequence but to be jostled out of my supposed birthright by a booby! ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... so tidy that the housemaid nearly had a surprise-fit when she went in. He crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she had time to prepare a thoroughly good booby-trap before she slid down the banisters just as the breakfast-bell rang. She was first in the room, so she was able to put a little salt in all the tea-cups before anyone else came in. Fresh tea was made, and Harry was ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... me appear in a most curious light. And what would at best be the result of my refusing the honor offered me? That you would make of me a contemptible helpless puppet, a target for your feminine wit, a booby whom you could tease and taunt as much as you liked, whom you could torment and put on the rack until you had driven him mad. (He has risen from the sofa.) Say yourself, Helen; what choice was left to me? (She stares at him, then turns her eyes about helplessly, shudders and struggles ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... to get hold of liquids out there, that's the worst of it," the pilot went on. "But for that any booby could manage a ship. He's only got to keep well to the right of Mads Hansen's farm, and he's got a straight road before him. And the deuce of a fine road! Telegraph-wires and ditches and a row of poplars on each side—just improved by the local ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... speak, though still with remorseful emotion, of his own lost child. 'No fear, Sharp,' he said, 'that I make that terrible mistake again. Annie will fall in love, please God, with no unlettered, soulless booby! Her mind shall be elevated, beautiful, and pure, as her person—she is the image of her mother—promises to be charming and attractive. You must come and see her.' I promised to do so; and he went his way. At one of these interviews—the first it must have been—I made ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... booby says't thou nothing but Cuckoo? The robin and the wren can that outdo. They to us play thorough their little throats Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes. But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do Little but suck our ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... granted, your will, of course, directed everything. At a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmly considering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to be caught—the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day—you insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places on God's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble as long as the casino remained open. As for me—baccarat[46] having no charms for me—I was ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... pony and boy rolled and struggled indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, surreptitious fried sausages, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... are the parents Who riches only prize, And, to the wealthy booby, Poor woman sacrifice! Meanwhile the hapless daughter Has but a choice of strife; To shun a tyrant father's hate, Become ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... yes! O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby. Whoso finds it—wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord— Let him ask what he will, he shall ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... before reaching New Holland. In the course of the night we were constantly wet with the sea, and exposed to cold and shiverings; and in the daytime we had no addition to our scanty allowance, save a booby and a small dolphin that we caught, the former on Friday the 5th, and the latter on Monday the 8th. Many of us were ill, and the men complained heavily. On Wednesday the 10th, after a very comfortless ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... great donkey," muttered the stranger; then, in a soliloquy, "Who could have supposed that Ehrenthal would keep such a booby as this? He takes ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... grain of corn; Some stupid, plodding, monkey-loving wight, Who wins their hearts by knowing black from white, Who with much pains, exerting all his sense, Can range aright his shillings, pounds, and pence. The booby father craves a booby son; And by heaven's blessing thinks himself undone. Wants of all kinds are made to fame a plea; One learns to lisp; another not to see: Miss D——, tottering, catches at your hand: Was ever thing ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... of the booby-hatch, used as a sort of settee by the officers, and the fife-rail round the mainmast, inclosing a little ark of canvas, painted green, where a small white dog with a blue ribbon round his neck, belonging to the dock-master's daughter, used to take his morning walks, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... own face wearing her expression of the puzzled child. No, not quite that expression as it always had been theretofore, but a modified form of it. To any self-centered, self-absorbed woman—there comes in her married life, unless she be married to a booby, a time, an hour, a moment even—for it can be narrowed down to a point—when she takes her first seeing look at the man upon whom she is dependent for protection, whether spiritual or material, or both. In her egotism and vanity she has been regarding him ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... villages, in many of his dugouts, and by contraptions with objects lying amid the litter, he had left "booby traps" to blow our men to bits if they knocked a wire, or stirred an old boot, or picked up a fountain-pen, or walked too often over a board where beneath acid was eating through a metal plate to a high-explosive charge. I little knew when ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard put to it—not when I first realised that I had been seen with my fingers on Adelaide's throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton's eye fixed upon me, I repeated—though with more self-control, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... hour or two every day at this season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of Monteiro. In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour cause a booby to pass for a Solon, and be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor neglected Camoens stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling glare of wealth and power. Retired from the public road he may see poor Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap and her head ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... kindly whisper'd, 'thou wert born to please.' Rous'd by the news, behold him now expand, Like beaten gold, and glitter o'er the land. Well stored with nods and sly approving winks, Now first with this and now with that he thinks; Howe'er opposing, still assents to each, And claps a dovetail to each booby's speech. At random thus for all, for none, he lives, Profusely lavish though he nothing gives; The world he roves as living but to show A friendless man without a single foe; From bad to good, to bad from good to run, And find a character ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston

... the demand for stores," ordered Bors. "We might as well stock up. Speed is essential. We can't use stores they've time to booby-trap or poison. Give them twenty minutes to start the stuff arriving. Demand fuel, extra rocket-fuel especially. Remind them ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... next day, the 26th, we caught another booby, so that Providence appeared to be relieving our wants in an extraordinary manner. The people were overjoyed at this addition to their dinner, which was distributed in the same manner as on the preceding evening; giving the blood to those who were the most in want of food. To make the bread a little ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... full title of the play to which Swift refers, is "The Lawyer's Fortune, or, Love in a Hollow Tree." It was published in 1705. Swift refers to Grimston in his verses "On Poetry, a Rhapsody." Pope, in one of his satires, calls him "booby lord." Grimston withdrew his play from circulation after the second edition, but it was reprinted in Rotterdam in 1728 and in London in 1736. Dr. Johnson told Chesterfield a story which made the Duchess ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... afternoon. A friend in Boston had written her about it, and, proud to be the first to introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize—a little drum, as something he could beat—and who, with a perplexed look in his face, was staring at the thing as if he did not ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby wore it at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... she'll feel for me "ever," But stay—if that blot is an "n" It turns it at once into "never," Or is it a slip of the pen? Her heart will a "truant (or true?) be," And what is the word just above? It looks like—it cannot be—"booby"! Perhaps it is "love." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various

... booby. Cornichon! Where did you find it? Let me see it—at once." All fire and imperiousness, she held out grasping fingers. He shook. And then carefully he drew from the inside pocket of his coat, the purse. She snatched it. Yes—it was her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... sea—dead calm; temperature of the atmosphere, tropical, blistering, unimaginable by one who has not been roasted in it. There was a cry of fire. An unfaithful sailor had disobeyed the rules and gone into the booby-hatch with an open light to draw some varnish from a cask. The proper result followed, and the vessel's hours ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... had been in the family for the last five or six years, came staggering into the room. He had been caught by a booby-trap which Irene had placed just over his pantry door, and a shower of spiders and caterpillars and other offensive insects had fallen all over him. His face was deadly pale, and he declared that he had been ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... sneaking, turnip-complexioned under-usher, who used to write execrable verses to the sickly housemaid, and borrow half-crowns of the simple wench, wherewith to buy pomatum to plaster his thin, lank hair. He was a known sneak, and a suspected tell-tale. The booby fell a-crying in a dark corner, and we took him with his handkerchief to his eyes. Out of the respect that we bore our French and Latin masters, we gave them their liberty, the door being set ajar for that purpose; but we reserved the usher, that, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Not in these clothes!" she said, twisting to free herself. "Wait till I put on my buckskins. Don't use me so roughly, you tear my laced apron. Oh! you great booby!" And with a quick cry of resentment she bent, caught her brother, and swung him off his feet clean over her left shoulder slap on ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... his character of the world's worst loser and winner, leaves behind him all manner of booby-traps, some puerile, many diabolical, which give our sappers plenty of work, cause a good many casualties, and only confirm ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... inclose with this the pages of feeble scribble-scrabble which the creature Sharpin calls a report. Look them over; and when you have made your way through all the gabble, I think you will agree with me that the conceited booby has looked for the thief in every direction but the right one. You can lay your hand on the guilty person in five minutes, now. Settle the case at once; forward your report to me at this place, and tell Mr. Sharpin that he is suspended till ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... son of sin!" Mr. Reardon soliloquized as he took the key and departed. "Faith, a booby birrd has more sinse nor you! D'ye suppose I didn't wait until ye were on djooty before axin' ye, well knowin' ye'd lind me the key an' I'd be alone in ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political power; whereas, there is no more distinction between these two things than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic, and give him twenty stripes ... I persecute; if I say, Everybody in the town where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices, but you, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... him; then, recognizing by his mien and voice that this at least was no booby, he smiled; the truculence of his manner vanished, and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... few strokes of the pen, and so they will give a fellow that they wouldn't ordinarily play on their friends as a practical joke, a nice sloppy letter of introduction to them; or hand out to a man that they wouldn't give away as a booby prize, a letter of recommendation in which they crack him up as having all the qualities necessary for an A1 Sunday-school superintendent ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... be very vartuous since she's liv'd in town, but vartue is but skin deep, as the saying is:—wou'dn't even let me kiss her;—I meant nothing but the genteel thing neither,—all in an honest way. I wonder what she can see in that clumsy booby's face, for to take his part, sooner than I!—but I'll go buy a new coat and breeches, and get my head fricaseed, and my beard comb'd a little, and then I'll cut a dash with the best on 'em. I'll go see where that ill-looking fellow stays with ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... the same low tone. "That's the bogle-booby breathing. He's asleep now, but when he wakes he'll roll about so that he'll ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... me you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph. "If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others, that had got to be thrown to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... can ever read it," said Raven, and then, seeing what a great booby he must sound, he ended savagely: "I'll ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... with scenery consisting of the mouth of hell, painted red and surmounted by a blue paradise starred with gold. An angel came down to play at dice with the devil for souls. In his excess of zeal, the angel cheated and the devil grew angry and called him a "big booby, a celestial fowl," and threatened to pull his feathers out ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... such ambition," replied Pigoult. "But we must first of all consult the Comte de Gondreville. Look, look!" he added; "see the attentions with which Simon is taking him that gilded booby, Beauvisage." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... when she told me that C—— had not written to her for so long. On account of anonymous letters he received; because he thought that he no longer loved her. I instantly comprehended his object. I am frantic for her, when I think what a satisfied face the booby will take with him to Mexico! And that poor girl has been crying ever since this morning. I am pleased. I foresaw everything, we must hold ourselves proudly, especially when the man wants to draw back. He invents excuses, and the poor ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... the bridge which he was about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. "Is ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... the Pontifex of Vesta, was an offensively and absurdly unctuous and pompous man. His son, who had already held several minor offices in the City Government, had been one of the quaestors the year before, and so was now a senator. But he was, as he always had been, as he remained, a booby. I do not believe that there was any man in Rome ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... all for miles around. I told him he looked like a market gardener, collecting flowers from every place he went to. I dragged him away several times, and told him he would certainly be taken for a country booby, and scolded him for demeaning his rank with such ignoble pleasures, and what wise answer do you think ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... illustration of woman's ability to analyze the most subtile of human emotions. Mme. de La Fayette was, also, the first to elevate, in literature, the character of the husband who, until then, was a nonentity or a booby; she makes of him a hero—sympathetic, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... great booby!" cried one and all, springing to their feet and rushing in the direction of the pier, upsetting and trampling over the unhappy Tubbs as ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... to be played on a given evening. It was a burlesque upon Washington and the American army. It represented the commander-in-chief of the American army as an awkward lout, equipped with a huge wig, and a long, rusty sword, attended by a country booby as orderly sergeant, in a rustic garb, with an old fire-lock seven or ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... to the individual figures of Joseph Andrews; what do they tell us of the man who called them into being. First and foremost, it is Parson Adams who unquestionably dominates the book. However much the licentious grossness of Lady Booby, the shameless self-seeking of her waiting-woman, Mrs Slipslop, the swinish avarice of Parson Trulliber, the calculating cruelty of Mrs Tow-wouse, to name but some of the vices here exposed, blazon forth that 'enthusiasm for righteousness' which constantly moved Fielding to exhibit ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... inhuman puppets of romanticism and rescued our literature from the clutches of booby idealists and sex-starved old maids. It has created visible and tangible human beings—after Balzac—and put them in accord with their surroundings. It has carried on the work, which romanticism began, of developing the language. Some of the naturalists ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... when released, return to us again and again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beings were these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there were many varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby that seems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they much resemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage is of a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary and secondary feathers of the wings, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... booby!" thought Mowbray; "he will get out of leading strings, if he goes on at this rate; and doubly confounded be this cursed tramper, who, the Lord knows why, has come hither from the Lord knows where, to drive the pigs through ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep; Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind, And his body's as impotent ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... time when we were off the Tuskar Light until Captain Snaggs hailed the cook to come aft; for I was in and out of the cuddy and under the break of the poop all the while, except now that I went up the companion, and stood by the booby hatch over it, waiting for the captain to turn round, so that I could ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... which slept leaning up against the trees because they had no joints in their legs. The inhabitants, cunning fellows, sought out the favoured trees and sawed them nearly through; so that when the unfortunate elks settled themselves to sleep, the booby-traps came into operation. Having no joints in their legs, the poor beasts were unable to rise, and so became an easy prey to the savage Teuton. Herodotus, too, was somewhat credulous in the matter of animals; Sir John Mandeville was not always to be trusted; ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... in his being. What a criminal fool he had been! What a blind booby! His only remark, however, brought a puzzled expression to Ettie's troubled countenance. Calvin Stammark exclaimed, "Phebe Braley." He was silent for a little, his frowning gaze fixed beyond ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... "Get up, you booby! up with you now, you're fit for nothing but eating and sleeping. Stop your grumbling and come out of that buffalo robe or I'll ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... self from one Eye to another, 'till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner met it, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a Captivated Calf as I was, Make way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality made all the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave to the fine Widow. During the Time her Cause was upon Tryal, she behaved ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... desired time the sound of the bugle is heard and the skirmish is ended. The fort having captured the most flags gains the victory and each soldier should be awarded a suitable prize. The fort having the least number of flags may be given a booby prize in the shape of small toy drums for the ladies and toy fife or horn for the gentlemen. The "General" may then order the soldiers of this fort to serenade the ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... satisfactory a perception of a complete booby before in my life; and it caused me to feel kindly towards him, and yet impatient and exasperated on behalf of common-sense, which could not possibly tolerate that such an unimaginable donkey should exist. I laid his absurdity before him in ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a temper and walked on. Arrived at the market-place, I stopped and gazed down the street. For pleasure. Now, was that an answer to give? For weariness, you should have replied, and made your voice whining. You are a booby; you will never learn to dissemble. From exhaustion, and you should have gasped ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... have got my Lord of Cork.(530) He is, I know, a very worthy man, and though not a bright man, nor a man of the world, much less a good author, yet it must be comfortable to you now and then to see something besides travelling children, booby governors, and abandoned women of quality. You say, you have made my Lord Cork give up my Lord Bolingbroke: it is comical to see how he is given up here, since the best of his writings, his metaphysical ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... said coldly. "It took time to fix it the way it is. At a guess, the ship was booby-trapped at the time of its last overhaul. But it was arranged that the booby trap had to be set, the trigger cocked, by somebody doing something very simple at a different place and later on. We've been flying with that ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... the mainland beyond York Islands, and here the captain displayed the English colours, and called it New South Wales, firing three volleys in the name of the king of Great Britain. After we had left Booby Island in search of New Guinea, we came in sight of a small island, and some of the officers strongly urged the captain to send a party of men on shore to cut down the cocoanut-trees for the sake of the fruit. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... ships contain enough bound light-energy to run all the planes we could make in the next ten years! We're going to have the enemy supply us with power we can't get in any other way. I can't decide, Arcot, whether you deserve a prize for ingenuity, or whether we should receive booby-prizes for ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... those young scamps perhaps Who love to rig their bogus bogies, And set their artful booby-traps For over-unsuspicious fogies? Or haply, only commonplace— A plodding sort of good apprentice, Who does his master's will with grace, And hurries ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... Bramble* left us for Booby Island, to call at the post office there, and rejoin company at Cape York, and we reached as far as the neighbourhood of Coconut Island at noon, passing close to Arden Island, then covered with prodigious numbers of blue and white herons, small terns, curlews, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... de la prose," in the Count de Soissons, one of the uneducated noblemen devoted to the chase. The memorable scene between Trissotin and Vadius, their mutual compliments terminating in their mutual contempt, had been rehearsed by their respective authors—the Abbe Cottin and Menage. The stultified booby of Limoges, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, and the mystified millionaire, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, were copied after life, as was Sganarelle, in Le Medecin malgre lui. The portraits in that gallery of dramatic paintings, Le Misanthrope, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... visit Lizard Island. Cape Flinders and Pelican Island. Entangled in the reefs. Haggerston's Island, Sunday Island, and Cairncross Island. Cutter springs a leak. Pass round Cape York. Endeavour Strait. Anchor under Booby Island. Remarks upon the Inner and Outer routes ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... Booby frightned out of his Wits, jumped out of Bed, and, in his Shirt, sat down by my Bed-Side, pale and trembling, for the Moon shone, and I kept my Eyes wide open, and pretended to fix them in my Head. Mrs. Jervis apply'd Lavender Water, and Hartshorn, and ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber



Words linked to "Booby" :   Sula, simpleton, booby hatch, gannet, dope, booby prize



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