busboy
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of busboy
1910–15, bus- short for omnibus waiter's helper ( see omnibus) + boy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The man who became Buddy Bradley was born Clarence Bradley Epps in 1905 in Clarkesville, Ga. Orphaned at 14, he moved to Harrisburg, Pa., and soon went to work as a busboy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
Not many Americans are both listed in the Social Register and employed as a busboy by age 9.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
He stars as the busboy at a beatnik bar who uses his incredibly lifelike sculptures to impress the hip clientele.
From New York Times ● May 12, 2024
Boss has worked as a server at the late Thaiger Room and Rom Mai Thai; JP tended bar at Pestle Rock and, at one point, worked as a busboy at a Vegas casino.
From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2024
Gangly, bespectacled, hair black as an oil slick and always perfectly combed forward, Tucker was a busboy, waiter, and cashier here at Finnegan’s, not to mention the smartest person I’d ever met.
From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia
Night Fever goes late enough that at a certain point one of the busboys runs around with all this pizza and says, “Someone accidentally delivered all this pizza.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2022
Black people worked as cooks, hosts, servers and busboys.
From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2022
He figured it was easy work — that any profession that advertised next to requests for porters, busboys and dishwashers must require no special talent.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2022
Ghost kitchens, which are popping up across the country, have no dining rooms, waiters, cashiers or busboys.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 16, 2019
We snuck around to the back entrance and made our way to the kitchen, where cooks, busboys, and servers were all bustling around, getting ready for dinner.
From "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
