Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Extremely successful; great.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective slang highly successful; superbly well done.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective informal Very good or successful
- noun A great
success ; ahit
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective resoundingly successful and popular
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
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Examples
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Anthony's also got a followup entry at his blog: "[W] hat I neglected to mention in the story is that most of the films have not exactly done 'boffo' business."
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For all the latest numbers from Up's "boffo" box office run, domestically and internationally, go to Box Office Mojo.
Archive 2009-06-01 Mike 2009
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Actually there is a degree of ammbiguity about the term "boffo" or at least about the root "boff".
I'm in My "What a Median Means" Mode - The Austrian Economists 2008
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Anything to do with Krusty the Klown's gotta be, in his words: "boffo"!
Linkorama Steve Hulett 2008
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JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: If a critic was writing a review of the Microsoft earnings report, "boffo" would be the word that comes to mind -- boffo.
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KING: Also what if you go "boffo" when you meet her?
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The guy who gave that "boffo" speech that so impressed her according to SourceWatch.
Crooks and Liars 2009
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"[T] he films in this year's Oscar race seem to suggest the world is more globally unified and polyglot than ever before," writes Anthony's also got a followup entry at his blog: "[W] hat I neglected to mention in the story is that most of the films have not exactly done 'boffo' business."
GreenCine Daily 2009
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Most jazz, these days, is released on small labels, few of which are generating any kind of boffo profits.
PopMatters 2009
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But also according to the source Paramount doesn't think Franco is the kind of boffo box office they want, so the producer and the studio are clashing over the casting.
unknown title 2009
bilby commented on the word boffo
"Rock Hudson later starred with John Wayne in The Undefeated (1969), but not before 'the Duke' made his military-entertainment masterpiece The Green Berets (1968), which enjoyed the full backing of the Vietnam-embattled Department of Defense. With loads of military input, The Green Berets proved to be, said Variety, a 'whammo' and 'boffo' box-office success. Critics, however, almost universally panned it. One New York Times film reviewer went so far as to call it 'so unspeakable, so stupid, so rotten and false in every detail… vile and insane.'"
- 'The Golden Age of the Military-Entertainment Complex', Nick Turse, 2008.
March 21, 2008
seanahan commented on the word boffo
Used by Ford Prefect to describe a beach in California, I believe.
March 22, 2008
chrisaldrich commented on the word boffo
Via http://www.boffosocko.com/about:
Boffo and socko are neologisms in the family of Variety-speak after the well known business trade journal covering Tinseltown (often better known as Hollywood aka the Coast, aka H’w’d.)
Their definitions from Variety’s slanguage dictionary follow:
An excellent example of their use appears in the 1984 film The Muppets Take Manhattan in this clip.
Other examples of Variety-speak appear in this clip from The Animaniacs
May 12, 2015