Word.ws English Dictionary

houseboys

houseboys is the plural of houseboy.

Meaning of houseboy

Noun

houseboy (plural houseboys)

  1. (historical) 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
  2. (derogatory, historical, offensive) A non-white adult male domestic servant.

Questions about houseboys

What is houseboys the plural of?
Houseboys is the plural of houseboy.

Words near houseboys in the dictionary

  1. housebote
  2. housebotes
  3. housebound
  4. houseboundness
  5. houseboy
  6. houseboys
  7. housebreak
  8. housebreaker
  9. housebreakers
  10. housebreaking
  11. housebreakings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: houseboys (page history and authors); 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.

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