Word.ws English Dictionary

boss key

boss key noun: a designated keypress to hide a running program from view, usually to conceal a game from a superior in the workplace.

Noun

boss key (plural boss keys)

  1. A designated keypress to hide a running program from view, usually to conceal a game from a superior in the workplace.
    • When the directors came out of their meeting, I hit the boss key to replace my game with a fake spreadsheet screen.
    • To obtain the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry games, press <Ctrl><B>. This is also displayed in the “Special” menu. However, use the boss key with caution. First of all, your boss must be really naive if he believes that this display is part of your normal work and secondly, you must be prepared to...1990, Michael Mueller, Martin Schuchardt, The Leisure Suit Larry Story, Abacus, →ISBN, page 19

Examples of boss key in a sentence

  • To obtain the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry games, press <Ctrl><B>.1990, Michael Mueller, Martin Schuchardt, The Leisure Suit Larry Story, Abacus, →ISBN, page 19:
  • For one, the original Tetris game I remember came with a "boss key," a special command built into the game's menu.2006, Ian Bogost, Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, MIT Press, →ISBN:
  • You can use screen savers to create a Super Boss Key—a key combination, such as Alt+F10, that you can press to make the PC immediately switch over to running the screen saver.2009, Woody Leonhard, Windows 7 All-in-One For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 240:

Synonyms of boss key

Forms of boss key

pluralboss keys

Questions about boss key

What does boss key mean?
Boss key means a designated keypress to hide a running program from view, usually to conceal a game from a superior in the workplace.
How do you use boss key in a sentence?
To obtain the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry games, press <Ctrl><B>.
What part of speech is boss key?
Boss key is a noun.
What is the plural of boss key?
The plural of boss key is boss keys.

Words near boss key in the dictionary

  1. boss eye
  2. boss fight
  3. boss fights
  4. boss head
  5. boss heads
  6. boss key
  7. boss keys
  8. boss man
  9. Boss of the Plains
  10. boss rush
  11. boss rushes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boss key (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-boss key.wav.

Cite this entry: “boss key.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boss_key. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.