jack-boy

plural jack-boys

1. alternativeAlternative form of jack boy.

   He was lower than the jack-boys and hirelings of the tuath, being generally a prisoner taken in war or an outlaw from some other tuath.

   1916, Darrell Figgis, Æ (George W. Russell): A Study of a Man and a Nation, page 131

   2 more examples

   Come you a wooing, And I alive and lusty? you shall find An alteration, jack-boys; I have a spirit yet (An I could match my hair to't, there's the fault), And can do offices of youth yet lightly;

   1856, Philip Massinger, William Gifford, The Plays of Philip Massinger, page 510

   The news soon spread from boy to boy and from ward to ward ; and there was an extraordinary call upon the services of the jack-boys, whose utmost exertions were scarcely equal to the demand.

   1895, An Old Blue, “Reminiscences of Christ's Hospital”, in Some More Gleanings, page 45