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’s hooked Falcon and her boyfriend, Hirael de Jesus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
“You’re not like other girls,” Tina tells Gen when her daughter asks why she can’t take a half-hour break from training to be with her boyfriend.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2026
Shortly before Nashville finished filming, she met a new boyfriend, Brian Hickerson.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
This is going to sound corny, but I recently tried Guac Daddy with my boyfriend, Dan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
To not have a boyfriend until she went to college?
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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
“I had grown up with hockey. I had boyfriends who played hockey. My dad loved hockey.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025
It includes dealing with new boyfriends of family members pretending to be who they aren’t.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2025
But even if I tried, they’d sniff it off me, because it’s so tight in our bedroom that there isn’t enough space for hidden crushes, unspoken names of boyfriends, and secret dates.
From "Pride" by Ibi Zoboi
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.
