NODE / 0871attestedPresent-Day English

boy

TRANSLITERATION boyPRONUNCIATION /bɔɪ/

male child; young man

DATE: 14th century–today
SENSE: male child young man
FAMILY: Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY: node:1:boy:attested:sense:male-child-young-man

The modern child sense follows medieval servant and churl uses.

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

GO DEEPERcontinuationestablished

Middle English · Middle English · male servant churl young male

boi

male servant; churl; young male

SOUND: Middle English boi develops into modern boy with stabilized spelling.
MEANING: Male servant, churl, and young-male senses settle around the modern male-child center.
CHRONOLOGY: Recorded in the fourteenth century.
SCHOLAR: Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
CONFIDENCE: established

Boy — Definition, Word History, and First Known UsesupportsEtymology and First Known Use

Publishes the Middle English horizon and fourteenth-century record.

ORIGINAL ↗

Boy — American Heritage DictionarycontextEtymology: Middle English boi; male servant, churl, young male

Documents the medieval form and semantic field.

ORIGINAL ↗

OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 871 ↗

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES: 0
REVIEWED EDGES: 0
DEEPEST PATH: 0
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED: 0

No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexicographic first useestablished

14th century

Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for boy

Century-level source report; no underlying object was directly inspected.

boy dossier · recorded as boy

Merriam-WebsterWITNESS RECORD ↗Boy — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use ↗

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

01boyboy · established