boyfriend

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A boyfriend is a person's regular male companion in a romantic and/or sexual relationship^[1], though normally not in long-term committed (eg. marital) relationships, where other titles (e.g. husband, partner) are more commonly used. In addition, the term "boy friend" (or in some areas "guy friend") can refer to a male non-romantic and non-sexual friend. The term can refer to a woman's or a man's romantic or sexual partner.

Word history

A girl with her possible boyfriend.

Boy friends (note the spacing) are not of a romantic nature.

In the past it had implications of an illicit relationship (as sexual and romantic relationships outside marriage were generally frowned upon). It is now a generally accepted term, however, no longer having negative connotations. An earlier usage in print, dating from July 1889, is discussed in Neil Bartlett's, Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde. On pages 108-110, Bartlett quotes from an issue of The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, which refers to Alectryon as "a boyfriend of Mars."

Synonyms

• an older man, e.g. "sugar daddy", "gentleman caller", "gentleman friend", "main man", "man", "old man", while others may suggest a young man (e.g., "baby").
• Gender-indiscriminate terms also apply, e.g., true love and some more specific terms such as cavalier, wooer, and gender-neutral ones like date, escort, steady or suitor; furthermore, non-gender specific euphemisms such as admirer, companion,
• leman or lemman, an archaic word for "sweetheart, paramour," from Medieval Briatian leofman (c.1205), from Old English leof (cognate of Dutch lief, German lieb) "dear" + man "human being, person" was originally applied to either gender, but remarkably usually meant mistress
• In popular culture, slang, internet chat, and cellphone texting, the truncated acronym "bf" is also used. ^[2]

Notes and references

External links

• EtymologyOnLine
• Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus, First Edition ON Thesaurus.reference.com

See also

Look up boyfriend in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Girlfriend
• Gay
• Courtship
• Life partner
• Significant other