ENGLISH
REFERENCE

booby prize

idiom
Meaning

A prize or status, often unwelcome, awarded as a joke or disincentive to the loser of a contest or for poor performance.


Examples
SIMPLE

I lost the race and won a silly booby prize.

CONTEXTUAL

The team finished last in the tournament and received a rubber chicken as a booby prize.

COMPLEX

Despite his earnest efforts to win the competition, he was ultimately awarded the booby prize, a humiliating token of his failure that the audience found quite amusing.

Anchors to
Related idioms2entries
  1. 01

    eyes on the prize

    Concentration on one's goal; mindfulness of the desired outcome.

  2. 02

    no prize for guessing

    Used to form expressions emphasizing the unsurprising nature of what follows

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