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Buoy   /bˈui/   Listen
noun
Buoy  n.  (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.
Anchor buoy, a buoy attached to, or marking the position of, an anchor.
Bell buoy, a large buoy on which a bell is mounted, to be rung by the motion of the waves.
Breeches buoy. See under Breeches.
Cable buoy, an empty cask employed to buoy up the cable in rocky anchorage.
Can buoy, a hollow buoy made of sheet or boiler iron, usually conical or pear-shaped.
Life buoy, a float intended to support persons who have fallen into the water, until a boat can be dispatched to save them.
Nut buoy or Nun buoy, a buoy large in the middle, and tapering nearly to a point at each end.
To stream the buoy, to let the anchor buoy fall by the ship's side into the water, before letting go the anchor.
Whistling buoy, a buoy fitted with a whistle that is blown by the action of the waves.



verb
Buoy  v. t.  (past & past part. buoyed; pres. part. buoying)  
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."
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."



Buoy  v. i.  To float; to rise like a buoy. "Rising merit will buoy up at last."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buoy" Quotes from Famous Books



... great attention to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of the dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair ones, when the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square yards. In half an hour the vessel had "slapped" past the low sandy spit of land that you have so often regarded with philosophical eyes, and we ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of craft, from the humble wherry to the ostentatious puffy little steamers who collect the cargoes of the North Sea fleet and rush them to market against all competitors. The market opens at five A. M., summer and winter. Moored to a buoy, a short distance from the shore, are always to be found one or more Dutch fishing-boats, certain inalienable rights permitting "no more than three" to be at any or all times tied up here. There is among the native watermen themselves ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... made the lead at 5 A.M. on Saturday morning. But a sad casualty occurred; we lost a poor fellow overboard, one of the seamen. He ought not to have been lost, and I blame myself. He was under the davits of the boat doing something, and the rope by which he was holding parted; the life-buoy almost knocked him as he passed the quarter of the vessel, and I, instead of jumping overboard, and shouting to the Melanesians to do the same, rushed to the falls. The boat was on the spot where his cap was floating ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... beach without the two-gallon keg of fresh water. And to prevent any obvious possibility, this boat was never to be left by day or night without one of the boat's crew to guard it. The latter was always to have ready some sort of floating buoy, "loaded at one end and a piece of bunting at the other," for marking the place where goods might be thrown overboard in a chase. The Inspecting Commanders were also to be on their guard against ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... behind the painted buoy That tosses at the harbour-mouth; And madly danced our hearts with joy, As fast we fleeted to the South: How fresh was every sight and sound On open main or winding shore! We knew the merry world was round, And we ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock


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