boyfriend
Americannoun
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.
Meanwhile, Aniston also spoke highly about her boyfriend in a November 2025 interview with Elle.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 9, 2026
“The fact that I was a bad boyfriend a decade ago, that’s something I’ve talked about openly at length for quite some time in multiple places,” he told Hayes on Thursday.
From Slate • Jun. 5, 2026
Yet even my former boyfriend from England, who I imagine having grown up with a silver spoon, would go on to acknowledge to me that Olive Garden was good in spite of his initial skepticism.
From Salon • Jun. 3, 2026
Carpenter requested that her sister, Sarah, and her sister’s boyfriend, guitarist George Smith, be added to the protection order as well since the couple reside in her Los Angeles home.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 2, 2026
“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”
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.
