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boo

interjectionnounverbnounnounverbnouncommon in dialogue

  • //buː//

A loud exclamation intended to scare someone. Usually used when one has been hidden from the target, and then appears unexpectedly.

interjection

  1. 1

    A loud exclamation intended to scare someone. Usually used when one has been hidden from the target, and then appears unexpectedly.

  2. 2

    An exclamation used by a member of an audience, as at a stage play or sporting event, to indicate derision or disapproval.

    I ask them to record their votes in my favour, and I ask, is there any man who will dare to call me a stranger (hear, hear, and booing)?

Etymology

From earlier (15c.) boh, coined to create a loud and startling sound. Compare Middle English bus! (“bang!”, interjection), Latin boō (“cry aloud, roar, shout”, verb), Ancient Greek βοάω (boáō, “shout”, verb).

noun

  1. 1

    A derisive shout of the word 'boo' made to indicate disapproval.

    ...Hodgson headed down the tunnel with the boos of fans ringing in his ears after an eighth league defeat of the season...

    Like a moustachioed pantomime villain relishing boos and hisses from the audience, Trump is oblivious to warnings and protestations from the sane world and simply contemptuous of the lickspittle mob desperately hoping to go unnoticed.

verb

  1. 1

    To shout extended boos derisively.

    When he took the podium, the crowd booed.

    Nobody booed and nobody clapped

    Substitute Charlie Austin scored seven minutes into his Southampton debut as a lacklustre Manchester United were booed off at Old Trafford.

  2. 2

    To shout extended boos at, as a form of disapproval or derision.

    The protesters loudly booed the visiting senator.

noun

  1. 1

    slangA close acquaintance or significant other.

    A tall, hooded young woman, clutching a newspaper article, delivered a note to the judge. “My name is Sunkist,” she wrote, “Lionel R. Harris is my boyfriend. Lewis shot my Boo and it was not self-defense . . . . Judge and jurors please listen to me I am 17 years of {age} and a good young lady and my Boo got killed for nothing.”

    At night I think of you / I want to be your lady, maybe / If your game is on give me a call, boo / If your lovin' strong, gonna give my all to you

    No matter what I do / All I think about is you / Even when I'm with my boo

    “Something about having to call her boo because he was getting off work and he likes to talk to her for at least half of his commute home.”

Etymology

From beau, from French beau. First appears c. 1988 in the Washington Post: See the cite below.

noun

  1. 1

    slangCannabis.

    […] sexually promiscuous girl who smoked boo all day and socialized with junkies when she wasn't busy banging away in bed […]

    Like I have smoked boo, drunk whiskey, and shot dope, and I was going through all three bags at once.

    Grandpa doesn't want Grandma and their kids and grandkids to know that he had to get penicillin shots all the time, or that he smoked boo (marijuana) on a daily basis, or that he dealt in the black market, or that he had yobos (purchased live-in sex slaves).

Etymology

Of unknown origin, possibly from boojum, from a fancied resemblance of the plants. First appears c. 1959 in Esquire Magazine.

verb

  1. 1

    archaicTo make a sound characteristic of cattle; to moo.

    The cow's tether is put about the neck of the individual who has lost the cow, and he must go about booing like a cow till atonement is made.

    In the north of England people very often speak about the "oxen booing" (not lowing)

    I remember being in the Great Nut Walk and hearing Old Nettle 'booing' like a cow outside .

Etymology

Likely onomatopoeic.

noun

  1. 1

    A tail feather from an ostrich.

    White Boos declined 10s. to 15s. per lb.; Femina Boos 2s. 6d. to 5s. per lb., and drab Boos about 2s. 6d. per lb.

    The usual kinds of ostrich feathers known to the trade come into the Tripoli market. These are whites, blacks, feminas, byocks, spadonas, boos, drabs and floss.

Etymology

Dubious; perhaps adaptation of French beau (“beautiful”).

Forms

plural
boos
past tense
booed
past participle
booed
present participle
booing
third person singular
boos

boo · A loud exclamation intended to scare someone. Usually used when one has been hidden from the target, and then appears unexpectedly.

Boo · A community in Nacka, Stockholm, central Sweden.boob · A mistake.booby · A stupid person.
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).