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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



... 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 as ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... that the angling clubs which encourage prize-taking offer booby consolations for the smallest fish, but I have known exceptions, especially at the holiday competitions by the seaside. The biggest fish are another matter altogether. Sooner or later the world is bound to hear of them. And who dare say us ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... turning very red, "If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre Irene, who tried to explain while ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... 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

... said she; "I know how to pleasure his Majesty better than you can teach me. Do you think his Majesty is booby enough to cry like a schoolboy because his sparrow has flown away? His Majesty has better taste. I am surprised at you, Chiffinch," she added, drawing herself up, "who were once thought to know the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the house had a succession of tenants; and for a short period it even sheltered a bevy of Nuns of the Sacred Heart. It was when they left that the estate was purchased by Mr. George Heald, a barrister with a flourishing practice. He left it to his booby son, the Cornet: and it was thus that Lola Montez established her connection ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... the core 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

... 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... called to the Bar, I'd an appetite fresh and hearty, But I was, as many young barristers are, An impecunious party. I'd a swallow-tail coat of a beautiful blue - A brief which was brought by a booby - A couple of shirts and a collar or two, And a ring that ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... night like this, and to an uneasy conscience, menaced danger. At length it occurred to him that the applicant might be Louis, whom he had sent with the message to the Porte Neuve: and he took the lamp and went to admit him, albeit reluctantly, for what did the booby mean by returning? It was late, and only to open at this hour might, in the light cast by ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... viols and the clanging of tambourines. It is needless to say that Passepartout watched these curious ceremonies with staring eyes and gaping mouth, and that his countenance was that of the greenest booby imaginable. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... good-looking, and a pleasant fellow to flirt with: but BEING a younger son, that is all he is good for; then there was young Mr. Green, rich enough, but of no family, and a great stupid fellow, a mere country booby! and then, our good rector, Mr. Hatfield: an HUMBLE admirer he ought to consider himself; but I fear he has forgotten to number humility among ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... out a great bushy—whiskered sailor from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. "Here am I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing—birds," crowed he to one of his messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand, and swung himself up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it, at the very instant dropped astern a yew yards in swinging ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... excited and offered to go out and kill somebody with his bare hands right off, or try to (he's a skinny little runt), if that's what he had to do to join. We argued it over, I pointed out that we let ex-soldiers count the killings they'd done in service, and that we counted poisonings and booby traps and such too—which are remote-control killings in a way—so eventually we let him in. He's doing good work. We're ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... your friend 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 now as ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... 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. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... tell ye, Mis' Tree, I had a time! I tell ye I got even with old Booby and Squashnose Weight, too, that time. ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards

... he. "Not so bad. Here's a little girl from a convent. She has a clever brain and a glib tongue, and under my tuition would be a perfect wonder. If this country booby does not make an open declaration at once, I wonder what her next ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... disagreement. But he seemed to simmer down all right, said he'd send along for you, and after a bit of time said you'd come, and wouldn't I walk through the house and see you myself. The crafty old fox had got his booby trap rigged in the mean time, and then I walked straight into it like the softest specimen of ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... take a leading place In chambers legislative: This booby with the vacant face— This ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... of the house was wide open, and old Gothon was standing on the threshold. She raised her arms toward heaven and cried like a booby, for she had known Leon since he was not much higher than her wash-tub. There was now another formidable hugging on the upper step, between the good old servant and her young master. After a reasonable interval, the friends of ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... speak 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, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... time. And it will not be on unfledged bantlings like you. But what is this for?" And he rudely kicked the culverin which apparently he had not noticed before, "So! so! understand," he continued, casting a sharp glance at one and another of us. "You looked to be besieged! Why you, booby, there is the shoot of your kitchen midden, twenty feet above the roof of old Fretis' store! And open, I will be sworn! Do you think that I should have come this way while there was a ladder in Caylus! Did you take the wolf ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... with fine weather. In the morning we caught another booby so that Providence appeared to be relieving our wants in an extraordinary manner. Towards noon we passed a great many pieces of the branches of trees, some of which appeared to have been no long time in the water. I had a good observation for the latitude, and found our situation to ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... (Wanders up the room.) I came because the Spirit of Revolt has crept into my School. A Secret Society has existed for weeks in the Lower Third! To-day it has come to my knowledge that a booby-trap was prepared for me by the hand of my own son, LAURITS, and I then discovered that a hair has been inserted in my cane by my daughter HILDA! The only way in which a right-minded Schoolmaster can combat this anarchic and subversive spirit is to start a newspaper, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various

... the ashes of Papa Victory, as the Prince de Joinville brought back the dead Emperor from St. Helena. Carnot I., after all, was simply a good war minister, who loomed into greatness only in comparison with the rogue Pache and the phenomenal booby Bouchotte who preceded him. He was certainly no better than his successor Petiet, and it was Petiet, not he, who finally "organised victory" by sending Moreau to the Rhine, and Bonaparte to Italy. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... 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 ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... "That booby!" the oldest brother would say whenever he saw Janko. And the second would snicker and repeat the ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... have been a 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

... three 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 take their ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... western civilization, is a time-bomb, built to detonate and scatter its fragments far and wide. It is a type of booby trap in which humanity has been caught periodically and horribly mangled. Without exception, each civilization has contained the forces and equipment needed for its own annihilation. At no time reported ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... than that hereditary policy which has been the poison in Christendom for two hundred years. There is a ghost who inhabits these perishing tenements, and in such a picture as this of Raemaekers men can see it looking out of the eyes. And it is neither the spirit of a tyrant nor of a booby; but the spirit of a ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least. And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be tough. How about my trying to smash up ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... size: we saw them three miles off, and they were the only objects visible above water, on the portion of the Barrier within our view. From our entrance, we had a fine run, and found nothing to stop us for a minute (during daylight), till clear of Booby Island at the western end of the Straits, which we passed at 10 A. M. on the seventeenth day ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... vegetation scanty. It was much of the same nature as the veldt in the dry season, kopjes being plentifully in evidence. There were unpleasant traces of Fritz and his native auxiliaries, for several of the springs had been systematically poisoned and cunningly-constructed booby-traps were frequently encountered. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... "Thou 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 eggs, and ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... you say, benefactress? He's still a regular booby! What can you expect of him! He'll get wiser, then it will be ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... 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 ("Le Prince ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... and deportment; while the English guests were overwhelmed with shame and confusion, and kept a most wary silence, for fear of being recognised by their countryman. As for our adventurer, he was inwardly transported with joy at sight of this curiosity. He considered him as a genuine, rich country booby, of the right English growth, fresh as imported; and his heart throbbed with rapture, when he heard Sir Stentor value himself upon the lining of his pockets. He foresaw, indeed, that the other knight would endeavour to reserve him for his own game; but he was too conscious of his own accomplishments ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... 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 ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... protesting against the profane interruption to Mr. Crewe's speech, bent her head to enter Mr. Crewe's booby sleigh, which had his crest on the panel. Alice was hustled in next, but Victoria avoided his ready assistance and got in herself, Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... searched the pockets of the trio—finding no weapons, however—a man had secured a ball of spun yarn from the booby hatch and ran up the poop steps with it. Then, under the influence of those long, blue tubes, the Captain and the two mates lay down on their faces, while the sailor securely bound their wrists ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's——" he cried, seeing a woman come by, whom he ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... hearing the sound of his voice, the lady president rushed to the edge of the platform, and glaring on the upright figure, which shook like an aspen beneath her fiery eyes, exclaimed, in thundering accents, "What are you standing there for, you booby-faced, blubber-chopped baboon in boots?" ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... whether I could have digested them. They would at all events have allayed the gnawing of hunger. I remembered reading of people suffering from hunger when navigating the ocean in open boats, and how much a flying-fish, or a booby, or a lump of rancid grease, had contributed to keep body and soul together. But neither booby nor flying-fish could I possibly obtain. I tried to think of all the various articles with which the ship was likely to be freighted. During my numerous visits to the quay alongside ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... Hardin, the hate of hell in his heart. A glass of neat brandy is tossed off. He throws himself heavily on the bed. The world is a torment to him now. "On to Sacramento" is his last thought. Money, in hoards and heaps, will drown this rich booby's vain interference. For, legislatures sell senatorial honors in California openly like cabbage in a huckster's wagon, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... 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, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... expression which had appeared on Mathieu's face since Gaude had been spoken of. "Ah!" said she; "there's a man, now, who in nowise resembles your squeamish Dr. Boutan, who is always prattling about the birth-rate. I can't understand why Constance keeps to that old-fashioned booby, holding the views she does. She is quite right, you know, in her opinions. I ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... booby, will yer? So you thought you was coming hout to frighten a little lad, did ye? And you met with one of your hown size, did ye? Now will ye get hup and take it like a man, or shall I give it ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... me, yet," said Elliott. "It would be altogether too tame. I'd qualify for the booby prize without trying. But the rest of you may race, if you ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... Snuffy beat his head horridly with his dirty fists. But Lorraine minds nothing; he says he knows old Snuffy will kill him some day, but he says he doesn't want to live, for his father and mother are dead; he only wants to catch old Snuffy in three more booby-traps before he dies. He's caught him in four already. You see, when old Snuffy is cat-walking he wears goloshes that he may sneak about better, and the way Lorraine makes booby-traps is by balancing ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... 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

... him I'd give him eight hundred in gold, and at last he concluded to take it. Well, as I told you, I set him to shelling on that barrel of corn, and I don't s'pose he shelled a dozen ears after I was gone. Don't you think, that nigger spent all that day in bawling after his mother—a great booby, twelve years old! He might have some sense in his head. I gave him one dressing, to begin with; for I found he'd got to know who was master. I've had him six weeks, and he isn't hardly ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds, and which can be trained by exercise and example, were, so to speak, the most popular virtues, early emulated among the youth. Stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mother's breast. Does a little booby cry for any ache? The mother scolds him in this fashion: "What a coward to cry for a trifling pain! What will you do when your arm is cut off in battle? What when you are called upon to commit harakiri?" We all know the pathetic ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... in this. The daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful; the son an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled at ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... 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 blamed. Lucy said, 'I did it,' but no one believed her. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... one of the most feeble noblemen in 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, who ...
— English Satires • Various

... Island is situated in the mouth of the river San Francisco, in California, so named from its being covered with these birds. Also Alcatraz on the coast of Africa, from Pelecanus sula—booby. Columbus mentions the alcatraz when ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... written her a simple little letter, telling her that he was leaving Ireland because he had suffered a great deal, and would write to her from New York, whereas he had written her the letter of a booby. And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, he went to his writing-table, but he had hardly put the pen to the paper when he heard a step on the gravel ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... Fielding thinking and provoked him to the composition of the first of his three great novels. Pamela is only remembered nowadays as Joseph's sister: the egregious Mr. B—- has hardly any existence save as Lady Booby's brother. 'Tis an ill wind that blows good to nobody. There are few more tedious or more unpleasant experiences than Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. But you have but to remember that without it the race might never have heard of Fanny and Joseph, of the fair Slipslop and the ingenuous ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... morsel of biscuit she had to the child, and was dying, in order that the urchin might live. I never could get rightly into the meaning of the thing, my Lady, why a woman, who is no better than a Lascar in matters of strength, nor any better than a booby in respect of courage, should be able to let go her hold of life in this quiet fashion, when many a stout mariner would be fighting for each mouthful of air the Lord might see fit to give. But there she was, white as the sail on which the storm has long beaten, and ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... drove up-town to the Utinam Club for a late luncheon. While we were 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 ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... punishment that a blundering, ill-bred booby can receive, who comes half an hour after the time he was bidden, to find the soup removed, and the fish cold: moreover, for such an offence, let him also be mulcted in a pecuniary penalty, to be applied to the FUND FOR ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... yes! O 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

... 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 ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... the day of George Sand to the day of Selma Lagerlof she has always got into her character study a touch of superior aloofness, of ill-concealed derision. I can't recall a single masculine figure created by a woman who is not, at bottom, a booby. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... must be granted to have excelled his master; for once both heroes are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseis was taken away by force from the Grecians, Creusa was lost for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the salt sea-shore, and, like a booby, was complaining to his mother when he should have revenged his injury by arms: AEneas took a nobler course; for, having secured his father and his son, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if she had been above ground. And here your lordship ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... 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 without ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... "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 a still ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... "You big booby," I interposed, "can't you see that I'm not angry? I blab about you to the King? What do you take me for? I am your pal, now and always, in affairs liable to prove inartistic to the King's, or Prince George's, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... plain ones that was content with a fair thing w'en they had the chance of it. Just the same with a boy; it's a bad thing for them to be able to do everythink, they are so terribly smart they end up by doin' nothink, an' the ploddin' feller they grinned at for bein' a booby, because he stuck to the one thing, comes out ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... the cargo deck. The cannister was inside now, coating up with frost. I told him to wait, then sent Chilcote, my demolition man, in to open it. Maybe it was booby-trapped. I stood by at the DVP and waited for other signs of Mancjo power to hit us. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... Grandison duplicates some of the principal characters in Clarissa: Charlotte Grandison is Anna Howe; her much-enduring husband Lord G— is Mr. Hickman (the writer expands G— to "Goosecap" on the model of Fielding's Mr. Booby); Pollexfen is Lovelace. This is self-evident, but may have been suggested by the conversation in which Harriet Byron calls Charlotte "a very Miss Howe," while Charlotte refers to Lord G— as "a very Mr. Hickman" (Grandison, 1754, II, 7-8). The Candid Examination, ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous

... 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, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... of the art that has enlightened a world. Prefer for an ancestor, to one whom scholar and sage never name but in homage, a worthless, obscure, jolter-headed booby in mail, whose only record to men is a brass plate in a church ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his mamma had forbidden him to play 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

... young booby ran after me, cursed me, and tore my cigar out of my mouth. I drew my sword, but the woman clutched my arm and cried: 'You killed the father on the 3d of January, on the Corsa dei Servi—spare ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... Humphry Huffum's, to hear a little Girl, when her Father was out of Humour, ask her Mamma, if she should reach down the Cap? These Caps, indeed, were of such Utility, that People of Sense never went without them; and it was common in the Country, when a Booby made his Appearance, and talked Nonsense, to say, he had ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous

... "The booby then told him the leading features of our plot, of which we had made no secret before him, as he was himself to have borne a part in it. True, he knew nothing of the alterations we had made at Paris in our original ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... 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 mistress ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... replied meekly that there was a good deal to be said on that point; still, he thought, one must not go to extreme lengths in asking for proof. They discussed many other things, not forgetting Sancho, whom his master praised for his drollery and criticised for being a booby. ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... devour the way, if only He's no booby; for all a snowy maiden Chide imperious, and her hands around him Both in jealousy clasp'd, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no ... when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart ... and when servility by town or state or the federal government or any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... bills of "Dancing at the Old Bailey," which are so profusely stuck up about the city, are said to have occasioned several awkward jokes and blunders; among others related, is that of a great unintellectual Yorkshire booby, who, after staring at the bills with his mouth open, and his saucer eyes nearly starting out of his head with astonishment, exclaimed, "Dang the buttons on't, I zee'd urn dangling all of a row last Wednesday at t' Ould Bailey, but didn't know as how they call'd that danzing,—by gum there ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... to lie at full length on the carpet, and declare oneself to be the length of a looby, and the breadth of a booby, but what was that as compared with sitting, blindfolded, on a chair, and guessing, among many kisses, which had been bestowed by "the girl he loved best?" As if he loved any of them! These pert and blowsy schoolgirls, with hideous ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... airs of a Dorine. "One morning, one of the most beplumed countesses of the Imperial court came to the house and wanted to speak to the marshal privately. I put myself in the way of hearing what she said. She burst into tears and confided to that booby of a marshal—yes, the Conde of the Republic is a booby!—that her husband, who served under him in Spain, had left her without means, and if she didn't get a thousand francs, or two thousand, that day her children must go without food; she hadn't any for the morrow. The marshal, who ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... "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 ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... had of late been her inclinations. Lord Peter she detested, nor did Martin stand much better in her good graces; but Jack had found the way to her heart. I have often admired what charms she discovered in that awkward booby, till I talked with a person that was acquainted with the intrigue, who gave me ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... Wright, that I am in love, and never was I so happy or so miserable in my days. If I was not a farmer there would be some hopes for me; but, to be sure, it is not to be expected that such a lady as she is should think of a mere country booby; in which light, indeed, she was pleased to say, as I heard from good authority, she did not consider me; though my manners wanted polish. These were her own words. I shall spare nothing to please her, if possible, and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... 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 eight ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Wakefield composed hymns before he was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed a little oratory in which he conducted services and—a pleasant touch of the more secular boy—which he protected from a too inquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that those marked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer world as Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This early predestination has always been the common episcopal experience. Archbishop Benson's early attempts at religious services remind one both of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... certitude formed 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 any visible object, then he added: "Put that back ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... very 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 ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... my return to Paris to avoid being present at the great fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate. We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... and beneath the clouds? For some weeks Summer was sulky—and sullenly scorned to shed a tear. His eyes were like ice. By-and-by, like a great school-boy, he began to whine and whimper—and when he found that would not do, he blubbered like the booby of the lowest form. Still the Sun would not look on him—or if he did, 'twas with a sudden and short half-smile half-scowl that froze the ingrate's blood. At last the Summer grew contrite, and the Sun forgiving, the one burst out into a flood of tears, the other into ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... 112 degrees 10 minutes longitude, latitude 2 degrees above the equator; no wind, no 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

... want an idea most dreadfully," the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. "I want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... said Allan, turning to his wife. "They're marra-to-bran, as folks say. Greta, he's a girt booby, isn't he?" ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... 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, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... after him with the holy-water sprinkler, that's what we'll do. "Don't butt in where you have no business to, you black-faced booby!" (The monk laughs) ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... 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 ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... though he is never brutal. He is, as we may say, first "perverted," though not as yet parvenu,[327] in the house of a Parisian, himself a nouveau riche and novus homo, on whose property in Champagne his own father is a wine-farmer. He is early selected for the beginnings of Lady-Booby-like attentions by "Madame," while he, as far as he is capable of the proceeding, falls in love with one of Madame's maids, Genevieve. It does not appear that, if the lady's part of the matter had gone further, Jacob (that is his name) would have been at all like ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... the great bookseller a man of such gentlemanlike and even distinguished bearing. Scott smiled, and answered, "Ay, Constable is indeed a grand-looking chield. He puts me in mind of Fielding's apology for Lady Booby—to wit, that Joseph Andrews had an air which, to those who had not seen many noblemen, would give an idea of nobility." I had not in those days been much initiated in the private jokes of what is called, by way of excellence, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... Thou booby, say'st thou nothing but Cuckoo? The robin and the wren can thee outdo. They to us play through their little throats, Taking not one, but sundry pretty taking notes. But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do Little ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... a fiddle, thanks to you and Ju—Mrs. Goring," replied Gordon, in a voice that rang with the pressure of clean, healthy lungs. "I want to do something. I'm infernally weary of this booby trap, playing hospital, and climbing trees to go to bed, and laying around like a pampered Sybarite. I'm coming out with you when ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... 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 had been bidden. Isabelita stared after him. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... really very much ashamed of her husband for being such a booby; but like the good wife she was, she kept her contempt to herself, just then, and told him to lie down in the cradle, and keep quiet, and she would attend to the Scotch Giant. Fin did as he was bid—his wife covered him up in the cradle, and commenced rocking and singing ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... the other, thrusting at the oars. "I don't spare spur when I'm ridin agin the French. I'm a man, and an Englishman—not a pink-faced, girl-eyed booby togged out in a cocked hat and a tin dagger, calling ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... Mowbray, and Tourville, likewise prepare themselves. I have a great mind to contrive a method to send James Harlowe to travel for improvement. Never was there a booby 'squire that more wanted it. Contrive it, did I say? I have already contrived it; could I but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand in it. This I am resolved upon; if I have not his ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... 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

... room. And then the Dragon said, 'Yes, shut it,' to Athene. Fancy saying 'Yes, shut it,' in a confidential semitone! Really, I can't see that it was so very wrong of Egerton, although he is a booby, to say there was no fun in having a row before breakfast. He didn't mean them to think he meant ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... 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; and ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the booby hatch if she ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... 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 ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Booby-traps were beaten hollow, Hapless man stepped back in vain, Knowing what a trip would follow If he only caught ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... big booby!" Ruth whispered to herself. Then her smile came back—that wistful, caressing smile—and she shook her head. "But he's Tom, and he always will be. Dear me! isn't he ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... folk-lore around whom many jokes have gathered which are, in other parts of Italy, told of some nameless person or attributed to the continental counterparts of the insular heroes. These two are Firrazzanu and Giufa. The former is the practical joker; the second, the typical booby found in the ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... 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

... a fresh enlivening crowd of pantomimic characters; the insipid dotards of the ancient comedy were transformed into the Venetian Pantaloon and the Bolognese Doctor; while the hare-brained fellow, the arch knave, and the booby, were furnished from Milan, Bergamo, and Calabria. He gave his newly-created beings new language and a new dress. From Plautus he appears to have taken the hint of introducing all the Italian dialects into one comedy, by making each character use his own; and even the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... to Torres' Strait. Eastern Fields and Pandora's Entrance. New channels amongst the reefs. Anchorage at Half-way Island, and under the York Isles. Prince of Wales's Islands further examined. Booby Isle. Passage across the Gulph of Carpentaria. Anchorage at Wessel's Islands. Passage to Coepang Bay, in Timor; and to Mauritius, where the leakiness of the Cumberland makes it necessary to stop. Anchorage at the Baye du Cap, and departure for ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly. And you will have brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with you. You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here. I spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you, seriously, don't let me catch you there again! Upon my word, you don't seem able to ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux

... going to talk to me like that?" cried Krisstyan. "The drowning man has risen again, and is going to swim ashore—now just wait till I push you in again. You think to yourself, 'Very well, booby, tell any one what you know; the first result will be that you will be arrested, clapped into jail, and forgotten there like a dog; you will soon be too dumb to tell anything more—or something else may happen.' I see what you think. But don't mistake ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... lost the game with Lumberport just because Billy wasn't at short; you all know that. I'm mighty glad the game with West High was called off for to-day. Without Billy Long, Central High is very likely to win the booby prize on the ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison

... to be feared—d'Artagnan and Athos; tell him that the third, Aramis, is the lover of Madame de Chevreuse—he may be left alone, we know his secret, and it may be useful; as to the fourth, Porthos, he is a fool, a simpleton, a blustering booby, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... stepped 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, and picked ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... came Mr. 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

... was a mistake to go away as I did, and I bring back all I carried away, with the result of some reflection. I can do as much here as anywhere. I hoped I could do something for you, and I, poor unweaned baby and booby, can do better for myself near ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... 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 ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... little eyes are ferretting from one side of the road to the other, as if he saw Chouans? The fellow seems to have no legs; the moment his horse is hidden by the carriage, he looks like a duck with its head sticking out of a pate. If that booby can hinder me ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... the village 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... by a score of the Essex's men. Some stood guard at the hatches with weapons held ready, while an officer and the others of the crew went below for a hurried trip of inspection, searching them diligently for "booby traps," and ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... fall asleep," continued the gunner. He yawned a few times, brushed the dust off his uniform, and said laughingly to Vogt: "It is nothing unusual on sentry-duty, you raw booby of a recruit! Nothing ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... of me." 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, I hope: ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... 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 ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... a mistake,' thought the squire. 'I see it now. I was never great at making friends myself. I always thought those Oxford and Cambridge men turned up their noses at me for a country booby, and I'd get the start and have none o' them. But when the boys went to Rugby and Cambridge, I should ha' let them have had their own friends about 'em, even though they might ha' looked down on me; it was the worst they could ha' done to me, and now what few friends ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... not come to the rehearsal, Booby Ivanitch?" the comic man began, panting and filling the room with fumes of vodka. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... they thought," he said, running his hand through his thick, black hair, and throwing back his head. "Better than I thought myself.... I've always said fool employers were the best friends we organizers have. The placard that young booby slapped the men in the face with—that did it....That and his spying on ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... 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 York ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... let us learn, not beastly facts, The field of any booby, But how thought acts and interacts, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various

... before the door.) Dolt, booby! I leave you to your folly! But I would have you know, there are none in this house, none but the marchioness Alberti, the countess ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... towards 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 that you, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... 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. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... 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 ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... him by the Irish when he visited Dublin caused him to say in one of his letters, "Were it not from the chilling recollection that novelty is easily substituted for merit, I should think, like the booby in Steele's play,[392] that I had been kept back, and that there was something more about me than I had ever been ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... relation among English books as the Racing Calendar does to those of Horsekind. He is a very intelligent, accomplished person. We had also there the Dean; a certain Dr. —— of Corpus College, Cambridge (a booby); and a clever fellow, a Mr. Fisher, one of the Tutors of Trinity in my days. We had a very ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... 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 time ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... their newspaper calls you names, they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells lies. Now you think you 've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they take ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... quite yourself, be ye? I knowed a feller once that thought he was the angel Gabriel and went around with a tin fish horn, tooting it at all hours of the day and night. But no graves opened for him and nobody was resurrected. They finally put him in the booby hatch, poor feller." ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... events, he would pass down first; and, the space being very narrow, the two dignitaries came into collision, and found themselves in utter darkness. The words "blockhead" and "booby" were the mildest which they now applied to ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... great pile of you Gauls there, in which there were only you and three others worth taking, among them that great booby, your neighbor—you know, Pierce-Skin. The Cretan archers gave him to me for good measure[17] after the sale. That is the way with you Gauls. You fight so desperately that after a battle live captives are exceedingly rare, and consequently priceless. I simply can't put out much money, so ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... not ashamed, you, Silvestre, to fall short in such a small matter? Deuce take it all! You, big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)



Words linked to "Booby" :   booby hatch, genus Sula, boob, booby prize, dummy, dumbbell



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