entry
boy
/bɔɪ/A young male child or adolescent
From Germanic, with a proposed Indo-European ancestry boy (Young male).
from Proto-Indo-European *bʰā-, *bʰāt- (“father, elder brother, brother”). Cognate with Scots boy (“boy”), West Frisian...
from Proto-Germanic *bō- (“brother, close male relation”)
from Vulgar Latin *imboiare
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English boy / boye (“servant, commoner, knave, boy”)
Word Ancestry
from Proto-Indo-European *bʰā-, *bʰāt- (“father, elder brother, brother”). Cognate with Scots boy (“boy”), West Frisian...
from Proto-Germanic *bō- (“brother, close male relation”)
from Vulgar Latin *imboiare
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English boy / boye (“servant, commoner, knave, boy”)
For centuries, boy did not primarily mean a child at all. In Middle English, around the 1200s and 1300s, it could mean a servant, commoner, rascal, or even a rough fellow—the age-based meaning “male child” appears clearly only around the late fourteenth century. One leading theory connects it with a Germanic family word for “brother” or “young male relation,” while another sends it through Old French embuie, “one fettered,” back to Latin boia, a leg iron or yoke; in that version, the word’s history begins with someone literally tied to service. Its semantic neighborhood was crowded: knave likewise moved from “boy” and “servant” toward “rogue,” while Dutch boef and German Bube preserve similar boy-to-rascal shifts. By about 1600, English boy was also being used offensively for an enslaved Black person or an Asian servant, a reminder that a supposedly innocent word can carry the social history of who was allowed to command and who was expected to serve. So when you say boy today, you may be using the softened descendant of a word that once pictured either a younger brother—or a shackled underling.
The Story
For centuries, boy did not primarily mean a child at all. In Middle English, around the 1200s and 1300s, it could mean a servant, commoner, rascal, or even a rough fellow—the age-based meaning “male child” appears clearly only around the late fourteenth century. One leading theory connects it with a Germanic family word for “brother” or “young male relation,” while another sends it through Old French embuie, “one fettered,” back to Latin boia, a leg iron or yoke; in that version, the word’s history begins with someone literally tied to service. Its semantic neighborhood was crowded: knave likewise moved from “boy” and “servant” toward “rogue,” while Dutch boef and German Bube preserve similar boy-to-rascal shifts. By about 1600, English boy was also being used offensively for an enslaved Black person or an Asian servant, a reminder that a supposedly innocent word can carry the social history of who was allowed to command and who was expected to serve. So when you say boy today, you may be using the softened descendant of a word that once pictured either a younger brother—or a shackled underling.
Modern Usage
A male person, a male friend, or sometimes a romantic partner
Notable References
- Urban Dictionary entries use boy for “a male” and “a girl's significant other.”
Kin & Kindred
From 'boy'·Young male, male child, or close male relation
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary