Word.ws English Dictionary

booly

/ˈbuːli/

booly noun: a company of Irish herdsmen, or a single herdsman, wandering from place to place with flocks and herds, and living on their milk.

Noun

booly (plural boolies)

  1. (Ireland, obsolete) A company of Irish herdsmen, or a single herdsman, wandering from place to place with flocks and herds, and living on their milk.
  2. (Ireland, obsolete) An enclosed shelter in the pasture land, usually in the mountainous parts, for the shelter of cattle or their herders.
    • The term booley was not confined to the mountainous districts; for in some parts of Ireland it was applied to any place where cattle were fed or milked, or which was set apart for dairy purposes.
    • they are evermore succoured and finde releife only in these boolies, being upon the waste places1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...

Synonyms of booly

Forms of booly

pluralboolies
alternative formboley
alternative formbolye
alternative formbooley
alternative formbouillie

Origin of booly

From Irish buaile (“cattle enclosure, summer pasturage for cows”), from Old Irish bó (“cow”) or būale, probably from Latin bovile (“cattle stall”) or bubile, from Latin bos (“cow, bull, ox”) (bov-).

Questions about booly

What does booly mean?
Booly means a company of Irish herdsmen, or a single herdsman, wandering from place to place with flocks and herds, and living on their milk.
What part of speech is booly?
Booly is a noun.
How do you pronounce booly?
Booly is pronounced /ˈbuːli/.
What is the plural of booly?
The plural of booly is boolies.

Words near booly in the dictionary

  1. boolies
  2. Booligal
  3. booling
  4. Boolite
  5. bools
  6. booly
  7. boom
  8. boom and bust
  9. boom bap
  10. boom barrier
  11. boom barriers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: booly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “booly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/booly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.