boy

\bɔj\

/\bɔj\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“boy” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,553) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#4,553
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Dans les colonies, valet, domestique.

Corpus desk

Index FR-boy · boy · French

boy · rank #4,553 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,553
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH boss

Nearest frequency peer: boss (-1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « boy »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « boy » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

boy vs by
67% similar
boy vs bu
33% similar
boy vs Br
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for boy
PropertyValue
Headwordboy
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bɔj\
Letters3
Frequency rank#4,553
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « boy »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).boyse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « boss » (#4,552), « caroline » (#4,554), « Bertrand » (#4,551). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « boy » est au #4,553. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for boy is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "bu", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \bɔj\. Frequency #4,553 among 4,251 “B” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

boy has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "bu", "Br", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is boy, spelled B-O-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Dans les colonies, valet, domestique.
  2. 2
    Jeune danseur de revue.
  3. 3
    Jeune garçon de piste affecté à diverses tâches durant la représentation du spectacle d'un cirque.
  4. 4
    Jeune garçon anglais.
  5. 5
    Ami, gars.
  6. 6
    Support élévateur, sorte de cric utilisé en laboratoire pour ajuster la hauteur de ce qui est posé dessus.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how boy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le boy, un bécon d'une douzaine d'années, attend patiemment, accroupi, la volonté du Céleste ; seuls ses yeux de singe ont salué l'arrivée de Wong-Truch d'un indéfinissable sourire.
  2. Aucun luxe, au contraire, une bonhomie spécifiquement belge, un certain laisser-aller même et, à l'encontre du Soudan anglais, des boys familiers, vêtus de blanc, qui vous souriaient de toutes leurs dents.

Synonyms

serviteur

This word in other languages

Diener(Deutsch)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "boy"?
"boy" is spelled B-O-Y. The IPA pronunciation is \bɔj\.
What does "boy" mean?
As a noun, "boy" means: Dans les colonies, valet, domestique.
What words are commonly confused with "boy"?
"boy" is commonly confused with "by", "bu", "Br". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "boy"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "boy" is \bɔj\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "boy" come from?
"boy" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "boy", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

DVD#4,484var#4,629AFP#4,463TVA#4,450

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list