link boy
link boy noun: a boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.
Noun
link boy (plural link boys)
- A boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.
- “Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think,” said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch.1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC
- By the early eighteenth century link-boys had long been part of London's criminal and sexual mythology.2009, Dan Cruikshank, The Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, page 94
- Synonyms:
- linkman, torchbearer
Synonyms of link boy
Forms of link boy
| plural | link boys |
|---|---|
| alternative form | link-boy |
| alternative form | linkboy |
Origin of link boy
From link (“torch, light”) + boy.
Questions about link boy
- What does link boy mean?
- Link boy means a boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.
- What part of speech is link boy?
- Link boy is a noun.
- What is the plural of link boy?
- The plural of link boy is link boys.
Words near link boy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: link 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.
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Cite this entry: “link boy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/link_boy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.