Etymograph

English

booly

Booly comes from Irish buaile ‘cattle enclosure, summer pasturage for cows’.

  1. Irishc. 1200–presentbuaile1‘cattle enclosure, summer pasturage for cows’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1596booly1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English booly
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser: “they are evermore succoured and finde releife only in…”.

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Irishc. 1200–presentbuaileWiktionary, English booly‘cattle enclosure, summer pasturage for cows’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1596boolyWiktionary, English booly. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser: “they are evermore succoured and finde releife only in…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws ‘cattle’

buffalo, cow, boa, bulimia, gopi, bucolic, 8 more

through Proto-Italic *gʷōs ‘cow’

beef, boeuf, 3 more

through Latin bos ‘cow, bull, ox’

bugle, bovine, 3 more

Today it means

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

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “booly”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Irish buaile / booly

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