Boy

How to spell boy

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce boy

What does boy mean?

1. nounA male child or a young man.

Boy in a sentence

• The youngest boy in the family started school this week.

• Every boy on the team trained hard before the match.

Where does boy come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

The word boy appears in Middle English around the 1300s as boi, often meaning a male servant or a knave before it settled into its modern sense of a young male child. Its earlier history is genuinely murky, which is why scholars argue over it; one popular theory links it to Old French embuie meaning 'one in fetters' or to a Latin source boia 'shackle', suggesting an original sense of a servant or someone bound to service. Others connect it to a Germanic word for a young man or brother, since similar forms turn up in regional dialects. Whatever the true root, the spelling has stayed pleasingly simple, with the oy capturing the diphthong sound directly. Because the origin is disputed, this entry leans cautious rather than telling a tidy single story.

How the word is built

• boy (a single root word, no prefix or suffix)