buoy

Etymology

From Middle English boy, boye, from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, buoy”), perhaps a special use of Middle Dutch boeye (“shackle, fetter”), from Old French buie (“fetter, chain”) (compare modern bouée), probably from Frankish *baukn, or alternatively from Latin boia (“a (leather) collar, band, fetter”), from Ancient Greek βόεος (bóeos), βόειος (bóeios, “of ox-hide”), from βοῦς (boûs, “ox”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”).

noun

1. (nautical) A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
   While comm buoys allow rapid transmission, there is a finite amount of bandwidth available. Given that trillions of people may be trying to pass a message through a given buoy at any one time, access to the network is parceled out on priority tiers. 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Communications: Administration Codex entry
2. A life-buoy; a life preserver.

verb

1. (transitive) To keep afloat or aloft; used with up.
2. (transitive) To support or maintain at a high level.
   “My Heart Will Go On” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Feb. 28, 1998, buoying the Titanic soundtrack’s 16-week run atop the Billboard 200. 2017-05-18, Mickey Rapkin, “The Oral History of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’: Controversies, Doubts & ‘Belly Pains’ In the Studio”, in Billboard
3. (transitive) To mark with a buoy.
   to buoy an anchor; to buoy or buoy off a channel
4. To maintain or enhance enthusiasm or confidence; to lift the spirits of.
   Buoyed by the huge success, they announced two other projects.
   It ended up being a bittersweet night for England, full of goals to send the crowd home happy, buoyed by the news that Montenegro and Poland had drawn elsewhere in Group H but also with a measure of regret about what happened to Danny Welbeck and what it means for Roy Hodgson's team going into a much more difficult assignment against Ukraine. 6 September 2013, Daniel Taylor, “Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban”, in The Guardian
   Considering the results of the study, today John may be buoyed at the clear trend of increasing numbers of new “lishes” for each successive decade since the 1950s, and the fact that nothing in the data suggests this trend is likely to falter. 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 18