# boob

Pronunciation: say "BOOB" /ˈbuːb/

## Noun

1. A breast, especially that of a woman or an adolescent girl. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A breast, especially a woman's or a teenage girl's.
   - _She found a lump in her left boob and booked a mammogram for the next morning._
   - _The dress was cut so low that she spent the whole party worrying about her boobs._
3. A mistake. *(colloquial, British)*
   - Simple: A mistake, something that you got wrong.
   - _Misspelling the minister's name in the headline was an embarrassing boob for the paper._
   - _There were a couple of boobs in the first draft, but nothing the editor couldn't sort out._
5. A prison or jail. *(slang, Australia, US)*
   - Simple: A prison or jail, where people are locked up as punishment.
   - _He did two years in the boob for armed robbery and came out with a tattoo and a trade._
   - _Mate, if the cops find that in your car, you'll be back in boob by Friday._

## Verb

4. To make a silly mistake or behave foolishly. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To make a silly mistake or act in a foolish way.
   - _Even careful editors boob now and then, which is why every page gets a second reader._
   - _The announcer boobed in calling the winning horse by the wrong name._

## Noun

2. An idiot or fool. *(dated, Canada, US)*
   - Simple: A silly or stupid person.
   - _Some boob in the front row talked through the entire movie._
   - _The senator dismissed his critics as a bunch of boobs who had never read the bill._

## Origin

**Meanings 2–4** — A clipped form of booby ("fool"), which appeared near the beginning of the twentieth century.
**Meaning 1** — A clipped form of booby ("breast"), appearing from the 20th century.
**Meaning 5** — Apparently shortened from booby-hatch.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/boob (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).