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Wiktionary

buoy

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English boy, boye, from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, buoy”), from Old French boue (“piece of wood or cork that floats above an anchor to indicate where it is anchored”) (modern French bouée), ultimately from Frankish *baukn (“beacon”). Doublet of beacon.

Alternatively, and perhaps less likely (due to the unexplained shift in meaning), from Middle Dutch boeye (“shackle, fetter”), from Old French buie (“fetter, chain”), from Latin boia (“a (leather) collar, band, fetter”), from Ancient Greek βόεος (bóeos), βόειος (bóeios, “of ox-hide”), from βοῦς (boûs, “ox”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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buoy (plural buoys)

  1. (nautical) A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
    • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Communications: Administration Codex entry:
      While comm buoys allow rapid transmission, there is a finite amount of bandwidth available. Given that trillions of people may be trying to pass a message through a given buoy at any one time, access to the network is parceled out on priority tiers.
  2. A life-buoy; a life preserver.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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buoy (third-person singular simple present buoys, present participle buoying, simple past and past participle buoyed)

  1. (transitive) To keep afloat or aloft; used with up.
  2. (transitive) To support or maintain at a high level.
    • 2017 May 18, Mickey Rapkin, “The Oral History of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’: Controversies, Doubts & ‘Belly Pains’ In the Studio”, in Billboard‎[1]:
      “My Heart Will Go On” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Feb. 28, 1998, buoying the Titanic soundtrack’s 16-week run atop the Billboard 200.
  3. (transitive) To mark with a buoy.
    to buoy an anchor; to buoy or buoy off a channel
  4. To maintain or enhance enthusiasm or confidence; to lift the spirits of.
    Buoyed by the huge success, they announced two other projects.
    • 2006 February 12, Leslie Feinberg, “Black movement raised hopes of all downtrodden”, in Workers World‎[2]:
      This dynamic stage of the ongoing struggle for long-denied democratic rights and national liberation helped inspire and buoy many in the U.S. and around the world who longed for social and economic justice.
    • 2013 September 6, Daniel Taylor, “Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban”, in The Guardian‎[3]:
      It ended up being a bittersweet night for England, full of goals to send the crowd home happy, buoyed by the news that Montenegro and Poland had drawn elsewhere in Group H but also with a measure of regret about what happened to Danny Welbeck and what it means for Roy Hodgson's team going into a much more difficult assignment against Ukraine.
    • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎[4], page 18:
      Considering the results of the study, today John may be buoyed at the clear trend of increasing numbers of new “lishes” for each successive decade since the 1950s, and the fact that nothing in the data suggests this trend is likely to falter.

Derived terms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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