boyfriend
Americanadjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of boyfriend
Explanation
A boyfriend is a male romantic partner. Your cousin might ask if she can bring her boyfriend to the family Thanksgiving dinner this year. Usually, your boyfriend is a boy or man you're romantically involved with. Your aunt might join a dating site after breaking up with her boyfriend, and your ten year old neighbor might announce she has a boyfriend after a boy leaves a candy bar on her desk. The words boyfriend and girlfriend first appeared in the early 1900s, around the start of modern dating in the US.
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:
That the memoir is so very frank stirs up trouble with her boyfriend, a much younger man.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Recently, I went to a wedding where my boyfriend and I were the only people with corporate jobs.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
Poppy had been with her boyfriend Joe Atkinson for three years.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Two nearby men thought the boyfriend had thrown the bottle at them, Cuellar said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
But her goal of getting a boyfriend and wanting to go to the dance was definitely new.
From "Keep It Together, Keiko Carter" by Debbi Michiko Florence
The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, along with the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
The wedding, this theory goes, was payback for 20 years’ worth of media that characterized her as desperate and lovelorn and having only herself to blame for boyfriends who wilted under the media’s gaze.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
Meanwhile, a parallel trend has emerged of boyfriends documenting how the movie left them rattled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
During Tuesday's proceedings, the court heard from Nora Haukland's former boyfriends, including one who spoke of their "peaceful break-up" and his respect for her, and another who described their relationship as turbulent.
From BBC ● Mar. 3, 2026
To go back to vaguely ignoring him the way he’d ignored all of Doreen’s other boyfriends.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
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.
