boy

/bɔɪ/

/bɔɪ/

Other forms: boys

A boy is a male child. When a baby is born, the doctor or midwife often says, "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy!"

A boy usually grows up to be a man, just as a girl most often becomes a woman. A delivery boy is a young man whose job involves taking pizzas to people's homes, and you might call to your dog, "Here, boy!" unless your dog is female. Boy is also an exclamation: "Oh boy! I can't wait for my vacation next week!" The Old English root is boie, "boy," but also "servant" or "commoner."

Definitions of boy

1. noun

   a youthful male person
   “the baby was a boy”

   “she made the boy brush his teeth every night”

   synonyms: male child

   antonyms:

   girl

   a youthful female person

   types:

   altar boy

   a boy serving as an acolyte

   ball boy

   a boy who retrieves balls for tennis players

   bat boy

   (baseball) a boy who takes care of bats and other baseball equipment

   cub, lad, laddie, sonny, sonny boy

   a male child (a familiar term of address to a boy)

   catamite

   a boy who submits to a sexual relationship with a man

   farm boy

   a boy who has grown up on a farm

   Fauntleroy, Little Lord Fauntleroy

   an excessively polite and well-dressed boy

   ploughboy, plowboy

   a boy who leads the animals that draw a plow

   schoolboy

   a boy attending school

   Scout

   a Boy Scout or Girl Scout

   shop boy

   a young male shop assistant

   Boy Scout

   a boy who is a member of the Boy Scouts

   Girl Scout

   a girl who is a member of the Girl Scouts

   type of:

   male, male person

   a person who belongs to the sex that cannot have babies
2. noun

   a male human offspring
   “his boy is taller than he is”

   synonyms: son

   antonyms:

   girl

   a female human offspring

   examples:

   Esau

   (Old Testament) the eldest son of Isaac who would have inherited the covenant that God made with Abraham and that Abraham passed on to Isaac; he traded his birthright to his twin brother Jacob for a mess of pottage

   types:

   Jnr, Jr, Junior

   a son who has the same first name as his father

   mama's boy, mamma's boy, mother's boy

   a boy excessively attached to his mother; lacking normal masculine interests

   type of:

   male offspring, man-child

   a child who is male
3. noun

   a friendly informal reference to a grown man
   “he likes to play golf with the boys”

   types:

   broth of a boy, broth of a man

   an outstanding person; as if produced by boiling down a savory broth

   one of the boys

   a man who has been socially accepted into a group of other men

   type of:

   adult male, man

   an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman)
4. noun

   (ethnic slur) offensive and disparaging term for Black man
   “get out of my way, boy”

   type of:

   Black man

   a man who is Black