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Boswell

American  
[boz-wel, -wuhl] / ˈbɒzˌwɛl, -wəl /

noun

  1. James, 1740–95, Scottish author: biographer of Samuel Johnson.

  2. any devoted biographer of a specific person.


Boswell British  
/ ˈbɒzwəl /

noun

  1. James . 1740–95, Scottish author and lawyer, noted particularly for his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

And I know there’s no James Boswell coming to write my biography.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026

His character Boswell Hyde—a “self-possessed pear-shaped young man in his rumpled seersuckers and his jaunty bow tie”—bears a close resemblance to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the Harvard professor and adviser to John F. Kennedy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026

With recruiters fixated on fellow guards Jared McCain and Kylan Boswell, Dent was largely overlooked.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2025

“Sudan is now de facto partitioned into two competing halves,” said Alan Boswell, a Sudan analyst with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025

He almost loped, not after the six-foot-three-inch bound of a Stew Boswell, but like a man who understood the true stamp and limit of his gait.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee

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