Buoy - Wiktionary

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:buoyWikipedia

Wikimedia Commons has media about:Buoys A buoy (noun sense 1) on the coast of EnglandA buoy (noun sense 1.1) in a port

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”), from Proto-Germanic *baukną. 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”).

Noun sense 2 was coined by American linguist Scott K. Lindell in 2003.

Pronunciation

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• (Received Pronunciation, Canada, General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈbɔɪ/
• (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbu.i/, /ˈbɔɪ/
• (obsolete) IPA(key): /ˈbwɔɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔɪ, -uːi
• Homophone: boy (most accents)

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.
   • 2024 July 30, Kayla Guo, “Texas’ floating barrier in the Rio Grande can stay for now, appeals court says”, in The Texas Tribune‎[1]:Texas began deploying chains of specially designed buoys down the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from crossing illegally in June 2023, sparking protests from migrant activists and from the Mexican government.
   1. A lifebuoy; a life preserver.
2. (linguistics, sign language) A sign where the non-dominant hand is held in a stationary configuration as a landmark for meaning associations with the dominant hand. [2003] list buoy

Derived terms

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• anchor buoy
• bell buoy
• breeches buoy
• buoyage
• buoyancy
• buoyant
• buoylike
• buoy rope
• buoy tender
• cable buoy
• can buoy
• conical buoy
• dan buoy
• depicting buoy
• fragment buoy
• lifebuoy, life buoy, life-buoy
• light buoy
• list buoy
• mooring buoy
• nun buoy
• pointer buoy
• pull buoy
• ring buoy
• safety buoy
• sonobuoy
• spar buoy
• stream the buoy
• theme buoy
• whistling buoy

Translations

[edit] moored float

Afrikaans: boei (af) Akan: please add this translation if you can Albanian: bovë (sq) f Arabic: شَمَنْدُورَة f (šamandūra), عَوَّامَة f (ʕawwāma) Armenian: ծփան (hy) (cpʻan) Assamese: please add this translation if you can Asturian: boya (ast) f Azerbaijani: şamandıra Basque: buia Belarusian: буй m (buj) Bengali: please add this translation if you can Bulgarian: шамандура (bg) f (šamandura), буй m (buj) Catalan: boia (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 浮標 / 浮标 (zh) (fúbiāo) Czech: bóje (cs) f Danish: bøje (da) c Dhivehi: please add this translation if you can Dutch: boei (nl) f Esperanto: buo, naĝobarelo Estonian: poi (et) Finnish: poiju (fi), reimari (fi) French: bouée (fr), flotteur (fr), balise (fr) Galician: boia (gl) f Georgian: ტივტივა (ka) (ṭivṭiva) German: Boje (de) f, Tonne (de) f Greek: σημαδούρα (el) f (simadoúra) Gujarati: please add this translation if you can Hawaiian: poe Hebrew: מצוף (he) f (matzof) Hindi: please add this translation if you can Hungarian: bója (hu) Icelandic: bauja (is) f, dufl (is) n Ido: boyo (io) Igbo: please add this translation if you can Ingrian: veha, buju Irish: baoi f Italian: boa (it) f Japanese: ブイ (ja) (bui), 浮標 (ja) (fuhyō) Korean: 부표 (ko) (bupyo), 부이 (ko) (bu'i) Latin: attollo m Lithuanian: plūduras m, buja f Macedonian: пловка f (plovka) Malay: pelampung Norman: boule f, bondé m Norwegian: Bokmål: bøye (no) m Nynorsk: bøye f or m Persian: بویه (fa) (boye) Polish: boja (pl) f, pława (pl) f Portuguese: boia (pt) f Romanian: geamandură (ro) f Russian: буй (ru) m (buj), буёк (ru) m (bujók) (small), ба́кен (ru) m (báken) Serbo-Croatian: Latin: plovak (sh) m, plutača (sh) f, bova (sh) f Slovene: boja (sl) f Somali: please add this translation if you can Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: boja f Spanish: boya (es) f Swahili: boya Swedish: boj (sv) c Tagalog: palutang Tamil: please add this translation if you can Telugu: please add this translation if you can Turkish: şamandıra (tr) Ottoman Turkish: شماندره (şamandra, şamandara, şamandıra), شماندوره (şamandura) Ukrainian: буй (uk) m (buj) Uyghur: لەيمىلەك (Leymilek) Vietnamese: phao (vi) Welsh: bwi m Wolof: please add this translation if you can Yoruba: please add this translation if you can

life buoy — see life preserver

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[2]:“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
   • 1839, Charles Darwin, chapter XIII, in Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, between the Years 1826 and 1836, […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 303:Not one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating weed.
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[3]: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[4]: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[5], 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.
   • 2026 February 4, Andy Comfort, “Northumberland Line: beyond the buffers”, in RAIL, number 1054, page 54:Fancett is clearly buoyed by the support. "I believe the people of Newbiggin[-by-the-Sea] want it. Newbiggin Council wants to see it [the line] extended.

Derived terms

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• buoy up
• upbuoy

Translations

[edit] keep afloat or aloft

Catalan: aboiar (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Dutch: drijvend houden, vlottend houden Finnish: (afloat) pitää pinnalla, kelluttaa (fi); (aloft) pitää ilmassa, leijuttaa French: surnager (fr) German: (afloat) aufbojen, flott erhalten, auf der Wasseroberfläche halten, über Wasser halten; (aloft) tragen (de), Low German: German Low German: op dat Waterböverflach holen, över Water holen Persian: شناور ماندن (šenâvar mândan)

support or maintain at a high level

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Dutch: stutten (nl), hoog houden Finnish: tukea (fi) German: oben halten, hoch halten, aufrechterhalten (de) Low German: German Low German: baven holen, hooch holen

mark with a buoy

Catalan: aboiar (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Dutch: afbakenen (nl), markeren (nl) Finnish: merkitä poijulla, poijuttaa German: mit einer Boje markieren, mit Bojen markieren, ausbojen, abbaken (de) Spanish: aboyar (es)

maintain or enhance enthusiasm or confidence

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: piristää (fi), rohkaista (fi) German: beflügeln (de) Portuguese: sustentar (pt)

References

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• Scott K. Liddell (2003), Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language‎[6], Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISBN

Further reading

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• “buoy”, in Collins English Dictionary, 2011–present.
• “buoy, n,v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “buoy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “buoy”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “buoy”, in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2026

Anagrams

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• Oyub, bouy, buyo