Word.ws English Dictionary

climbing boy

climbing boy noun: a small child employed by a chimney sweep to ascend and clean flues.

Noun

climbing boy (plural climbing boys)

  1. (historical) A small child employed by a chimney sweep to ascend and clean flues.

Forms of climbing boy

pluralclimbing boys

Origin of climbing boy

From the fact that boys were often sold into labor to “climb” chimneys in the 1800s.

Questions about climbing boy

What does climbing boy mean?
Climbing boy means a small child employed by a chimney sweep to ascend and clean flues.
What part of speech is climbing boy?
Climbing boy is a noun.
What is the plural of climbing boy?
The plural of climbing boy is climbing boys.

Words near climbing boy in the dictionary

  1. climbiest
  2. climbin'
  3. climbing
  4. climbing bolt
  5. climbing bolts
  6. climbing boy
  7. climbing boys
  8. climbing down
  9. climbing fern
  10. climbing ferns
  11. climbing fig

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: climbing boy (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:

Cite this entry: “climbing boy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/climbing_boy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.