principal boy

British  

noun

1. the leading male role in a pantomime, played by a woman

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Example Sentences

A young woman plays the “principal boy.”

From New York Times

Tall and elegant in a herringbone jacket and shiny black knee boots, she looks like a cross between the headteacher of a private girls’ school and the principal boy in the school pantomime.

From The Guardian

Principal boy of a panto meets Pocahontas imagined by Robert Louis Stevenson.

From The Guardian

Flimsy non-speaking role as adjunct to principal boy?

From The Guardian

For gender-benders You thought cross-dressing was confined to the British tradition of the seasonal pantomime, which demands that a leggy young woman play the principal boy and usually casts a man of some seniority as the principal dame?

From New York Times