Word.ws English Dictionary

loblolly boy

loblolly boy noun: in 18th- and 19th-century warships, a non-professional (male) assistant to the ship's surgeon.

Noun

loblolly boy (plural loblolly boys)

  1. (historical) In 18th- and 19th-century warships, a non-professional (male) assistant to the ship's surgeon.
    • [T]he carpenter repairing masts and plugging dangerous leaks in the hull, the surgeon attending to the sick. (His helpers were known as loblolly boys, for the porridge they served.)2023, David Grann, chapter 2, in The Wager, Doubleday, page 39

Forms of loblolly boy

pluralloblolly boys

Origin of loblolly boy

From loblolly in the sense of gruel made with seaworthy ingredients.

Questions about loblolly boy

What does loblolly boy mean?
Loblolly boy means in 18th- and 19th-century warships, a non-professional (male) assistant to the ship's surgeon.
What part of speech is loblolly boy?
Loblolly boy is a noun.
What is the plural of loblolly boy?
The plural of loblolly boy is loblolly boys.

Words near loblolly boy in the dictionary

  1. loblollied
  2. loblollies
  3. loblolly
  4. loblolly bay
  5. loblolly bays
  6. loblolly boy
  7. loblolly boys
  8. loblolly pine
  9. loblolly pines
  10. loblolly tree
  11. loblolly trees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: loblolly 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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