English

Noun

boobyism ‎(countable and uncountable, plural boobyisms)

1. The quality of being a booby, foolishness.
   • 1836, Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Chapter XIII—Private Theatres,

     Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen’s dressing-room, or the green-room (where there is any), at a private theatre; and such are the sums extracted from the shop-till, or overcharged in the office expenditure, by the donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre.

   • 1908, Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale, Chapter IV,

     Samuel gazed upwards at the handsome long nose and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, so agreeable, so renowned, so esteemed, so philosophic, and admitted to himself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state of comparative boobyism.