Forms: 2–5 boþe, 3–6 bothe, 6–7 boothe, 6– booth. Also north. 5–6 buth(e, 6 bouthe, bowthe, Sc. boithe, 6– Sc. buith. [ME. bōþe, bōthe, prob. a. ODa. *bóð (mod.Da. and Sw. bod booth, stall, shop = OIcel. búð fem. dwelling, f. East Norse bóa = Icel. búa to dwell. Cf. MHG. buode ‘hut, tent,’ mod.G. bude ‘booth, stall’: perh. also from East Norse. Some think the Teutonic word to be adopted from Slavonic: cf. Boh. bouda, Pol. buda, which are at least cognate.]
1. A temporary dwelling covered with boughs of trees or other slight materials. arch. in gen. sense.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 185. Ðar haueð elch patriarche, and prophete, and apostles … maked faier bode [for boðe] inne to wunien.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 441. He bowed vnder his lyttel bope.
a. 1536. Tindale, Brief Declar. Sacr., Wks. 1848, I. 376. He had made booths, or houses of boughs for his beasts.
1580. Baret, Alv., B 930. A Boothe or place couered where men sitte to talke for recreation.
1655. H. Vaughan, Silex Scint., II. 179. Every bush is something’s booth.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1732), 40. At the North end they led into Booths, and Summer-houses.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 178. We cut down branches of trees, and built us two large booths.
1871. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, xiii. 174. The memories of the desert were impressively revived, by constructing temporary booths, made of intertwisted palm, olive, pine, myrtle, and ‘willows from the brook.’
b. esp. A temporary structure covered with canvas, or the like; a tent. Now chiefly as in 2.
1535. Coverdale, 2 Kings vii. 10. We came to the tentes of the Sirians, and beholde, there is no man there … but … the bothes as they stonde.
1674. Scheffer’s Lapland, xiv. 71. That certain boothes and sheds be provided.
1762. Goldsm., Nash, 30. Obliged to assemble in a booth to drink tea and chocolate.
1775. R. Chandler, Trav. Asia M. (1825), I. 137. A wild country covered … with the black booths of the Turcomans.
1838. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-bks. (1871), I. 109. Booths on the Common, selling gingerbread, [etc.].
c. Polling-booth: a temporary structure for voting purposes at a parliamentary or other election.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire, 1854, II. 111. The booths are erected at the joint expense of the candidates … the cost of a booth erected for a county election shall not exceed 45l.
2. spec. A covered stall at a market; a tent at a fair, or the like, for the sale of wares or refreshments, exhibition of the feats of jugglers, etc. See also TOLL-BOOTH.
c. 1200. Ormin, 15573. Ne birrþ ȝuw nohht min Faderr hus Till chepinngboþe turrnenn.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 3457. They … brenten townes, and bothes.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 46. Boþe, chapmannys schoppe.
1483. Cath. Angl., 49. A Buthe, emptorium.
1535. Lyndesay, Satyre, 1015. Ane laidlie lurdan loun, Cumde to break buithis.
1580. Baret, Alv., B 1038. A bouthe or tente that any occupier maketh in a faire or other places.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 271. A denne of Theeves? a Bowthe of brothells?
c. 1610. Sir J. Melville, Mem. (1735), 227. Unruly Servants broke up the Merchants’ Booths.
1723. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 13. To pay at going into a booth to see a show.
1808. Jamieson, s.v., The Luckenbooths of Edinburgh, wooden shops [which formerly stood in the High Street].
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 350. The booths where goods were exposed to sale projected far into the streets.
3. Comb., as booth-cloth, -keeper, † -mail (= boothage).
1552. Huloet, Boothclothes, wherwith boothes or tentes ben couered.
c. 1570. Ld. Sempill, 3 Taverners. To pay my buith-mail and my stand.
1838. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-bks. (1871), I. 109. Booth-keepers knocking down the temporary structures.
