boys
- 1Plural of boy.
The boys in the back row kept whispering through the lesson.
She has three boys and a daughter, all under ten.
Note
A regular plural built with a plain -s. Because boy has a vowel before its final y, the plural is never spelled with -ies. It carries the singular's whole range, from schoolchildren to grown sons and the affectionate use for younger men. The plural possessive is boys' (the boys' changing room), not boy's. Unlike the slang word for testicles, every use here has a singular behind it.
- 2The testicles.
A stray elbow caught him in the boys and ended his afternoon.
Cyclists learn early to keep the boys well padded on long rides.
Similarballs, nuts, testicles, nads
Note
Locker-room slang that exists only in the plural and nearly always comes with the article: the boys. It turns up where injury or comfort is the joke, such as an elbow in a pickup game or a hard saddle on a long ride. Its humor depends on sounding like the ordinary plural. Keep it to casual talk among people who will hear the wink, and out of formal or clinical writing.
boys is a form of boy
boy, noun: A male child. Full entry
- Forms
- boyboys plural
- Spelling
- boy → boys: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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