buoy Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun bright-colored; a float attached by rope to the seabed to mark channels in a harbor or underwater hazards
  2. verb float on the surface of water
  3. verb keep afloat
    buoy up.
    • The life vest buoyed him up
  4. verb mark with a buoy

WordNet

Buoy noun
Etymology
D. boei buoy, fetter, fr. OF. boie, buie, chain, fetter, F. bouée a buoy, from L. boia. "Boiae genus vinculorum tam ferreae quam ligneae." Festus. So called because chained to its place.
Definitions
  1. (Naut.) A float; esp. a floating object moored to the bottom, to mark a channel or to point out the position of something beneath the water, as an anchor, shoal, rock, etc.
Buoy transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Buoyed present participle & verbal noun Buoying
Definitions
  1. To keep from sinking in a fluid, as in water or air; to keep afloat; -- with up.
  2. To support or sustain; to preserve from sinking into ruin or despondency.
    Those old prejudices, which buoy up the ponderous mass of his nobility, wealth, and title. Burke.
  3. To fix buoys to; to mark by a buoy or by buoys; as, to buoy an anchor; to buoy or buoy off a channel.
    Not one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating weed. Darwin.
Buoy intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To float; to rise like a buoy. "Rising merit will buoy up at last." Pope.

Webster 1913