Booing

How to spell booing

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce booing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does booing mean?

1. nounThe act of shouting 'boo' to show disapproval or contempt, especially at a public performance or event.

Booing in a sentence

• The loud booing from the crowd drowned out the referee's whistle.

• After the politician's speech, a wave of booing swept through the hall.

Where does booing come from?

Language of origin: Other

The base word 'boo' is an imitative exclamation, meaning that it was coined to imitate the sound itself rather than being inherited from an older root. It appears in English from around the fifteenth century as a sound used to startle, frighten, or show contempt, much like the lowing of cattle that some early writers compared it to. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 'boo' had settled into its modern theatrical sense of a jeering cry shouted at an unpopular performer or speaker. Adding the ordinary '-ing' suffix turns it into the noun and ongoing-action form 'booing', describing the act of making that disapproving noise. Because 'boo' ends in a long vowel sound, the spelling simply keeps both letters of 'oo' and tacks on '-ing', with no doubling or dropping of letters, which is the small point worth remembering.

How the word is built

• boo (imitative exclamation of disapproval)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)