Other forms: homeboys
A homeboy is a male friend from your own neighbourhood. My homeboy, an old homeboy, homeboys from the block.
It began as a way of naming somebody from the same home town, which mattered most to people who had moved north, and it grew into a general word for a close male friend. It belongs to African American English; homegirl is the equivalent, and homie covers both.
1nounhomeboyA male friend from your own neighbourhood.
“He went back to the old neighbourhood to see his homeboys from school.”
homeboy is a friend.
Home plus boy, twentieth-century African American slang, first for somebody from the same home town.
20th-century African-American urban slang. Originated from travelers to metropolitan areas derived from American English as a hometown and boy. However, modern use is mostly by African-Americans and Latinos in the United States.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA