Other forms: bosses, bossing
Your boss is the person at work who decides what you do and signs off your holiday. The one whose name is on the email you reread three times before sending it.
Boss stretches well past the office. The boss of a family, a gang, a political machine — anyone in charge. As a verb it wants AROUND: stop bossing me around means giving orders you have no right to give. Video games handed the word a second life, where the boss is the huge enemy at the end of a level, and boss fight and final boss now describe any last big obstacle. Bossy is the adjective for someone who orders people about when nobody asked, and it is an insult.
1nounbossThe person who is in charge of you at work.~2%
“I'll have to ask my boss before I book the flights.”
2nouncontrolThe person in control of an organisation or group.~82%
“The union boss called the strike off at midnight.”
3nounvideoIn video games, the powerful enemy you fight at the end of a level or a game.~14%
“It took us nine tries to beat the final boss.”
4verbkeepIn boss around: to keep telling someone what to do without the right to.~2%
“He bosses his little brother around from morning to night.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
boss is a person in charge.
Boss came from Dutch baas, master of a household, and behind that Middle Dutch baes and an Old Dutch word for uncle or kinsman, from Proto-Germanic *baswô, 'uncle'. It began as a respectful way of addressing an older relative. In New Amsterdam, later New York, it shifted to fill a gap: a name for the man in charge who was not your master.
Dutch
baas
English, today
boss
Borrowed from Dutch baas. Borrowed from Dutch baas, from Middle Dutch baes (“master of a household, friend”), from Old Dutch baso (“uncle, kinsman”), from Proto-West Germanic baswō, from Proto-Germanic baswô (“uncle”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic bō- (“father, older male relative”), source also of the English terms babe, boy, bub, bully. Cognate with Middle Low German bās (“supervisor, foreman”), Old Frisian bas (“master”), hence stq Boas (“boss”), Old High German basa (“father's sister, cousin”), hence German Base (“aunt, cousin”). Originally a term of respect used to address an older relative. Later, in New Amsterdam, it began to mean a person in charge who is not a master.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA