boss
Pluralbosses
Pluralbosses
- 1A person who is in charge of other people at work, such as a supervisor, manager, or the head of a business.
Every morning the boss reviews what each worker still needs to finish.
Good bosses listen to feedback from the people they manage.
UsageYou work for a boss and report to them; your manager is your boss.
Similarsupervisor, manager, chief, head
Oppositeemployee, worker, subordinate
Note
In this sense a boss is whoever directs your work, the supervisor on the floor, and not necessarily the person who owns or runs the company.
- 2
- 3In video games, a particularly powerful enemy, often met at the end of a level, that usually must be defeated to progress.
The boss guarding the castle gate took the whole party to bring down.
Players grind for better gear before challenging the final boss.
UsageCommon in boss battle, boss fight and the final boss.
Similarguardian
Note
Writing in 2017 about Cuphead, Heather Alexandra praised its boss battles as tests of pattern recognition rather than luck. Some games give the same role a grander name, guardian, for an enemy that stands between the player and the way forward.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Alexandra's 2017 Cuphead article praises pattern recognition over luck. kotaku.com
- 4To exercise authoritative control over someone, telling them what to do, often repeatedly.
She tends to boss her coworkers whenever a project falls behind schedule.
He bossed the volunteers relentlessly until they finished setting up the hall.
UsageMost often boss someone around or boss someone about.
Similarbully, dominate, drive, command
Note
In The Purloined Paperweight (1967), Wodehouse sets "she bossed him" beside "she still orders him around," and boss around is its phrasal partner. The object need not be a person. Robert L. May's Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1939) credits Rudolph with having bossed, meaning directed, the previous night's journey.
- 5The person who controls a political party within a given region or district.
The city boss handpicked candidates and rewarded loyal supporters with jobs.
For decades a single party boss dominated the district's elections.
UsageOften in party boss and city boss.
Similarleader
- 6An informal way of addressing a man, especially a customer, and sometimes a friend or equal.
Right this way, boss, your table is ready.
"Where to, boss?" the cab driver asked as I climbed into the back seat.
UsageUsually at the start or end of what you say: where to, boss?
Similarchief, mate, pal, buddy, sir
Note
Here the word is a form of address rather than a job title. It is heard especially in India, the Philippines and Multicultural London English. A shopkeeper may call a customer boss as a courtesy, but friends of equal standing use it too, so it makes no claim that the man actually gives orders.
Less common meanings
- 7Excellent; of the very best quality.
Their new album is boss from start to finish.
We had a boss time at the festival this weekend.
Similarexcellent, great, awesome, fantastic, terrific
Oppositeterrible, awful, lousy
Note
This is slang approval, heard in the US and Canada and also in Liverpool. It works before a noun (a boss poster) and after a verb, as when a boy on The Munsters in 1966 says the way a TV star talks is "really boss." As a true adjective it takes degree words and even forms bosser and bossest, but it stays at home in casual speech.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The Munsters episode containing the quotation aired in 1966. en.wikipedia.org
- A boy describes the way a television personality talks as really boss. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A raised, rounded knob or projection, such as the center of a shield, a carved knob where ceiling ribs meet, or a projecting part on a machine casting.
The mounting boss on the engine block accepts the bracket bolts.
Each boss was machined to precise tolerances before assembly.
Note
Engineers use the word for a raised collar of material, often a short cylinder around a hole, that gives a fastener more to grip. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (1985) has a sergeant screwing a bipod into "the threaded boss on the underside of the barrel." A threaded boss is one cut to take a screw, and it shows the mechanical sense at its most typical.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Cormac McCarthy wrote Blood Meridian, first published in 1985. search.worldcat.org
- The novel describes a sergeant screwing a bipod into the barrel's threaded boss, using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
- 9A humorous way of referring to one's wife, as the person who is really in charge at home.
"Before I agree to anything, I'll need to run it by the boss," he joked, glancing at his wife across the room.
My wife is the boss at home, so she decided where we went on vacation this year.
UsageUsually the boss, as in check with the boss or ask the boss.
- 10A hassock or low seat, especially one made from a bound bundle of straw.
Note
A third word entirely, apparently a corruption of bass, gives the oddest sense of the set: a straw hassock or low seat. It has passed out of use, yet James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) seats Stephen by the hearth with "his feet resting on the toasted boss." Readers of older fiction may still meet it there.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- The hassock sense has a separate origin, apparently from bass, a variant of bast. en.wiktionary.org
- Bass is an alternative form of bast. en.wiktionary.org
- Boss can mean a straw hassock or small seat. en.wiktionary.org
- James Joyce wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, first published in book form in 1916. en.wikisource.org
- The novel places Stephen on a chair beside the hearth. en.wikisource.org
- The first edition reads “his feet resting on the toasted boss.” en.wikisource.org
- 11To take control of a match, contest, or part of the playing area by clearly outplaying the other side.
If we can boss the midfield early on, they'll struggle to get back into the match.
England were bossing the scrum for most of the first half.
UsageCommon in boss the midfield, boss possession and boss the scrum.
Note
Where the bossy, ordering-about verb is a complaint, this one is praise for the side that did the bossing.
- 12To decorate something with raised, rounded ornaments; to emboss.
- 13A lump-like mass of rock, especially one that projects upward through a layer of different rock.
- 14A roughly cut block of stone set in position so that it can be carved in place at a later stage.
- 15A target block, now usually made of foam but historically of straw bales, to which a target face is attached.
- 16A wooden tub for holding mortar during masonry or tiling work, suspended by a hook from the laths or from a ladder's rungs.
Boss, a short trough for holding water, when tiling the roof
1842, Peter Nicholson, The Mechanic's Companion - 17A head or reservoir of water; a quantity of water held in store or under pressure.
Showing meanings only.
More uses
- like a bosswith great confidence and skill
Practice
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Origins
Dutch baas, the source of the English word, comes from baes, a Middle Dutch word for "master of a household, friend." It perhaps goes back through Old Dutch to a Proto-Germanic word for "uncle" or an older male relative, and it may be related to babe, boy, and bully. In New Amsterdam it came to be used for someone in charge who was not a master.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- English boss was borrowed from Dutch baas. tile.loc.gov
- Dutch baas derives from Middle Dutch baes, meaning master of a household or friend. en.wiktionary.org
- The proposed ancestry runs through Old Dutch to a Proto-Germanic word meaning uncle, possibly connected with a term for an older male relative. en.wiktionary.org
- Boss may be related to babe, boy, and bully. en.wiktionary.org
- In New Amsterdam the word developed the meaning of a person in charge who was not a master. en.wiktionary.org
Proto-Germanic *bautaną ("to hit, strike, beat") gave Frankish *bottja, which led to Old French boce ("lump, bulge, protuberance, knot") and then Middle English bos. Beat is related.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Proto-Germanic *bautaną meant ‘to hit, strike, beat’ and gave rise to Frankish *bottja. en.wiktionary.org
- Frankish *bottja led to Old French boce, meaning ‘lump, bulge, protuberance, knot’. en.wiktionary.org
- Old French boce became Middle English bos, the ancestor of this sense of boss. en.wiktionary.org
- Beat is etymologically related to this sense of boss. en.wiktionary.org
Apparently a corruption of bass or bast, the plant fiber used for mats and hassocks.