houseboy
Syllables: house·boy/ˈhaʊsbɔɪ/
houseboy noun: a young male domestic servant, especially in a British colony in former times.
Noun
houseboy (plural houseboys)
- A young male domestic servant, especially in a British colony in former times.
- House servants are usually either Chinese or Tamil, the former predominating, especially in towns of any size. The domestic staff will in general consist of a houseboy (in large establishments two houseboys), a water carrier (tukang ayer), whose duties include washing dishes and preparing baths, a...1935, Ralph Lionel German, Handbook to British Malaya, 1935, [London]: [R. L. German]: Obtainable from the Malay Information Agency, Waterlow and Sons, →OCLC, page 50
- A married man with a family of three living in a private house will require in most cases a cook, houseboy, an amah (female servant) for washing and ironing, a second amah to take care of small children or infants, and one or possibly two gardeners depending on the size of the lot. A syce...1949, Office of International Trade with Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, International Reference Service, volume 6, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 64
- A non-white adult male domestic servant.
houseboy meaning in Tagalog
houseboy in Tagalog
- young male domestic servant, especially in a British colony in former times
- alilà
Forms of houseboy
| plural | houseboys |
|---|---|
| alternative form | houseboi |
| alternative form | house boy |
| alternative form | house-boy |
Origin of houseboy
From house + boy (“young male; (historical or offensive) non-white male servant regardless of age”).
Questions about houseboy
- What does houseboy mean?
- Houseboy means a young male domestic servant, especially in a British colony in former times.
- What is houseboy in Tagalog?
- Houseboy in Tagalog is alilà. See Houseboy meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is houseboy?
- Houseboy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce houseboy?
- Houseboy is pronounced /ˈhaʊsbɔɪ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of houseboy?
- The plural of houseboy is houseboys.
Words near houseboy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: houseboy (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)-I learned some phrases-houseboy.wav.
Cite this entry: “houseboy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/houseboy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.