Meaning of boy in English

boy

noun [ C ]

/bɔɪ/ us

/bɔɪ/

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a male child or, more generally, a male of any age:

a teenage/adolescent boy

As a young boy, my father used to walk three miles to school.

You've been a very naughty boy!

little boy Their little boy is very sick.

boys and girls All right, boys and girls, settle down!

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

a child

childWhen I was a child the summers seemed to go on for ever.
boyThere's a new boy in my class.
girlThe girl's name is Sally.
kidI'm off to pick up the kids from school.
kiddieI saw her with a little kiddie in a pushchair.
little oneThe little ones must be hungry by now.

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the boys B2 [ plural ]

a group of male friends:

He used to like spending Friday nights with the boys.

(also our boys)

an approving way of speaking about your country's soldiers:

We must not forget our boys serving far from home.

one of the boys

a typical male:

He plays baseball, drinks a lot of beer and generally acts like one of the boys.

extremely offensive old-fashioned

an extremely offensive word used in the past to refer to or address a black man, especially a black male servant or worker

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He's an affectionate little boy.
He was always a good boy, very friendly and eager to please.
We've got two grandchildren - a three-year-old girl and a bouncing baby boy.
She's at that age where she's starting to get interested in boys.
According to witnesses, the robbery was carried out by two teenage boys.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Children & babies

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Idioms

bad/big boy
boys will be boys
my (dear) boy
the boys in blue

boy

exclamation

mainly US informal

/bɔɪ/ us

/bɔɪ/

(also oh boy)

used to express excitement, worry, disappointment, etc. or to emphasize something:

Boy, that was good!

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistics: interjections

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(Definition of boy from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

boy | American Dictionary

boy

noun [ C ]

/bɔɪ/

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a male child or, more generally, a male of any age:

Some boys were playing basketball in the schoolyard.

Boy sometimes means son:

We have two children – a boy and a girl.

Idiom

(Oh) boy!

(Definition of boy from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

BOY | Business English

BOY

noun [ U ]

ACCOUNTING, FINANCE

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abbreviation for beginning of year

(Definition of boy from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of boy

boy

Analyzing twin resemblance in multisymptom data : genetic applications of a latent class model for symptoms of conduct disorder in juvenile boys.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The boy wants so much to believe them, to know that it's true.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The boy wants to sit beside him, but his father leads him away.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

For example, a boy who does not graduate from high school has limited employment and further education options.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The signi®cant data demonstrated that boys and girls totally differed in the type of musical tastes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Results indicated that externalizing behavior was positively associated with physical victimization for boys and girls, but not with relational victimization.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A 22-month-old boy was referred for corrective cardiac surgery.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These intercept estimates indicate that rejected boys had approximately three more parent-reported internalizing symptoms than nonrejected boys at the initial sixth-grade assessment.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The boys were dressed in khaki and gave up all other activities in order to establish a state.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A working boy was elevated to heroic status.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Methodological considerations ultimately reduced our final sample size to 28; there were seventeen boys and eleven girls.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Neighbouring villages would typically share a common grazing area to prevent stock rustlers from attacking boys caring for livestock far from the settlements.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Besides music appreciation and singing, girls also scored higher responding means than boys for playing the recorder and other instruments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A variety of studies using court records, arrests, and self-report measures indicates that juvenile crime is increasing proportionately for both boys and girls.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In their study of aggressive adolescent boys in residential mental health treatment, the stimuli were facial expressions of others depicted in photos.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.