Word.ws English Dictionary

boot-black

boot-black is the alternative spelling of bootblack.

Meaning of bootblack

Noun

bootblack (plural bootblacks)

  1. (dated) A shoeshine boy; a person who shines shoes as an occupation.
    • The young negro bootblack hummed "The Camp Meeting Blues" and polished in rhythm to his tune, drawing the shiny shoe-rag so taut at each stroke that it snapped like a banjo string.1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXIV, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC

See all 2 meanings of bootblack

Forms of boot-black

pluralboot-blacks

Questions about boot-black

What is boot-black the alternative spelling of?
Boot-black is the alternative spelling of bootblack.

Words near boot-black in the dictionary

  1. boot trees
  2. boot up
  3. boot upstairs
  4. boot verb
  5. boot verbs
  6. boot-black
  7. boot-blacks
  8. boot-boy
  9. boot-boys
  10. boot-catcher
  11. boot-cut

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boot-black (page history and authors); bootblack (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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