Skip to content

whiteboy

Today it means: A member of the Whiteboys, a secret Irish agrarian organization in 18th-century Ireland, using violent tactics to defend tenant farmers' land rights for subsistence farming. Full definition →

First used 17th c.

Ask AI about its historyChatGPT Claude Perplexity Google AI Grok

whiteboy · noun¹

From white + boy.

Whiteboy · noun²

From white + boy, from the white smocks the members wore in their nightly raids.

First known use, by meaning

from 17th c. A man or boy who is highly favoured; a pet, a darling.
from 18th c. Alternative form of Whiteboy
from 20th c. A Caucasian male.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.