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:
Lola Baird has just asked her boyfriend to pull over.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Nguyen had told her boyfriend she thought the dog was run over but did not admit to running over the animal herself, Garcia said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Pike believed Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
Pike had accused Colleen of insulting her and trying to steal her boyfriend.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
I don’t think Jasmine’s ever had a boyfriend before.
From "King and the Dragonflies" by Kacen Callender
China's new rules cover apps that have been specifically designed as AI friends, boyfriends or girlfriends but they also apply to any large language model that imitates the way a human interacts.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
It’s women bringing their boyfriends, women who now bring their husbands, couples coming together, and I love it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
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
“Shedding our childish ways! All for the great life as teenagers we’re about to have. When we get boyfriends, we’re going to go to Fall Ball!”
From "Keep It Together, Keiko Carter" by Debbi Michiko Florence
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.
