good old boy
"good-old-boy" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“good old boy” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A male friend, especially a childhood friend; a man with an established network of friends who assist one another in social and business situations; a decent, dependable fellow.
Corpus desk
Index EN-good-old-boy · good old boy · English
good old boy · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | good old boy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “good old boy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
good old boy is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
good old boy doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is good old boy, spelled G-O-O-D- -O-L-D- -B-O-Y.
Definition
- 1A male friend, especially a childhood friend; a man with an established network of friends who assist one another in social and business situations; a decent, dependable fellow.
- 2A white man who embodies the culture stereotypically associated with the Southern US, such as bias against nonwhite people, and other conservative (usually Christian) attitudes.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how good old boy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"Billie, what kind of a lad is that young Coke up at Washurst?" He addressed an old college friend. . . . "He's one of those Ohio Cokes—regular thing—father millionaire—used to be a barber—good old boy."
Tell these fellows to say to their Sultan that he is a good old boy, and that we thank him very much.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.