say boo

English

Verb

say boo (third-person singular simple present says boo, present participle saying boo, simple past and past participle said boo) (informal, chiefly US)

1. (always in the negative) To say anything, especially in protest or to complain.

   She took the last piece of cake, and nobody said boo.

   • 1993 March 24, Mr. [Harris W. ]Fawell, quotee, Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1036 […] ‎^[1], →OCLC, page 41:

     Nobody says boo about it, nobody has had any problems with it until the Hydrostorage case came along.

   • 2004, Beverly Barton, Worth Dying For‎^[2], →ISBN:

     " […] What did you say to her to make her run off?" An incredulous expression formed on Tad's face. "I didn't say boo to the kid. […] "

   • 2018, Ingrid Persaud, “The Sweet Sop”, in The BBC National Short Story Award‎^[3], →ISBN:

     That kind of bad mind was not Christian but I wasn't saying boo. I am not that brave or that stupid.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:say boo.

Further reading

• “not say boo”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.