Originally meant 'servant' in Middle English with no reference to age — its narrowing to 'male child' happened alongside 'girl' to 'female child.'
A male child or young man.
From Middle English 'boi' or 'boie,' meaning 'servant, knave, person of low status.' The word's ultimate origin is debated — it may come from Anglo-French 'embuié' (fettered, bound in chains), referring to a bound servant, or from a Frisian or Low German word for 'young man.' Crucially, 'boy' in its earliest uses had nothing to do with age — it meant a person of servile status
In medieval English, 'boy' meant 'servant' or 'low-status person,' not a male child. The anonymous poem 'The Peterborough Chronicle' (1154) uses 'boy' to mean 'knave' or 'rascal.' The word's sinister history of being used to address adult men of subjugated groups — a usage that persisted into the twentieth century in colonial and racist contexts — echoes