Other forms: boys
A boy is a male child. A little boy, a boy of ten, boys and girls.
Used of an adult man, boy ranges from affectionate among friends — the boys, a night out with the boys — to seriously offensive, particularly when a white speaker uses it of a Black man, where it carries the weight of a long history and should simply be avoided. Note boyfriend, which is a separate entry; oh boy, an exclamation of surprise; and boys will be boys, a phrase used to excuse behaviour and increasingly challenged for that reason.
1nounboyA male child.~60%
“The boy at the back had not said a word all term.”
2nounyoungA young man.~40%
“He was a boy of nineteen when he enlisted.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 10 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
boy is a young male person.
Middle English boy first meant a servant or a low-born man, and the earliest sense had contempt in it. That older layer is exactly why calling a grown man boy still stings, centuries after the ordinary meaning became simply a male child.
Middle English
boye
English, today
boy
Built from
From Middle English boye. From Middle English boy//boye (“servant, commoner, knave, boy”), from Old English bōia (“boy”), from Proto-West Germanic bōjō, from Proto-Germanic bōjô (“younger brother, young male relation”), from Proto-Germanic bō- (“brother, close male relation”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰā-, bʰāt- (“father, elder brother, brother”). Cognate with Scots boy (“boy”), West Frisian boai (“boy”), Dutch boi (“boy”), Low German Boi (“boy”), and probably to the Old English - proper name Bōia. Also related to stq Bouge (“boy”), vls boe (“brother”), Norwegian - dialectal boa (“brother”), Dutch boef (“rogue, knave”), bar Bua (“young boy, lad”), German Bube "boy; knave; jack"; > English bub, Icelandic bófi (“rogue, crook, bandit, knave”), lmo bagaj "boy"; (< gem -). See also bully.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA