"bad boy" meaning in English

See bad boy in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-bad boy.ogg [Australia] Forms: bad boys [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} bad boy (plural bad boys)
  1. A man whose rebellious nature makes him dangerous and/or attractive. Categories (topical): People, Stock characters
    Sense id: en-bad_boy-en-noun-8ehG~4Xu Disambiguation of People: 40 0 0 12 47 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 25 3 26 22 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 2 14 11 38 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 19 1 27 30 23 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 22 1 26 25 25
  2. (slang) A male criminal. Tags: slang Categories (topical): Male
    Sense id: en-bad_boy-en-noun-uvq1IhPe Disambiguation of Male: 7 73 7 6 7
  3. (figuratively, slang) An undesirable or difficult task. Tags: figuratively, slang Categories (topical): Stock characters
    Sense id: en-bad_boy-en-noun-KmUcfk3H Disambiguation of Stock characters: 25 3 26 22 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 2 14 11 38 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 19 1 27 30 23 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 22 1 26 25 25
  4. (slang) A powerful or impressive product or item. Tags: slang Categories (topical): People, Stock characters Synonyms: bad baby
    Sense id: en-bad_boy-en-noun-I9wj9-E6 Disambiguation of People: 40 0 0 12 47 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 25 3 26 22 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 2 14 11 38 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 19 1 27 30 23 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 22 1 26 25 25
  5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bad, boy. Categories (topical): People, Stock characters Synonyms: bad-boy, badboy Related terms: baby, big boy, Chad, tall, dark and handsome
    Sense id: en-bad_boy-en-noun-UUJ48k7E Disambiguation of People: 40 0 0 12 47 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 25 3 26 22 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 2 14 11 38 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 19 1 27 30 23 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 22 1 26 25 25

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for bad boy meaning in English (8.6kB)

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        {
          "ref": "2012, Douglas MacKinnon, Vengeance Is Mine",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, N. Arielli, B. Collins, Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the Modern Era",
          "text": "Among the 'students' receiving below average marks was 22-year-old Vsevolod Raube from Bobruisk, who was considered the 'bad boy of the party'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Kendra Leigh Castle, Shadow Rising",
          "text": "Like so many dark and delicious bad boys, there's more to Damien than meets the eye.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 November 6, Emma Garland, “Aaron Carter was the millennium’s bubblegum bad boy – and the victim of a rapacious music industry”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "Born in the small town of Rockwood, east Tennessee, Carter’s bubblegum sound and mini-bad boy image made him the definitive millennium child star.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1949 November-December, Floyd E. Low, “Keep that pitch UP!”, in The Instrumentalist, volume 4, Association for the Advancement of Instrumental Music, page 38",
          "text": "Many school music teachers and directors are not primarily clarinetists and, knowing little of the subtle intricacies of this \"bad boy\" of instruments, can teach little more than the fingering.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Writers Forum, numbers 14-17, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs",
          "text": "[…] he groaned as he twisted his arm over his head to follow the groove to the right wheel well, \"if this bad boy connects right there, then it can't be a light.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992 November 16, “The POWERstation 220: Here today. More tomorrow. [Advertisement]”, in InfoWorld, volume 14, number 46, page 137",
          "text": "So isn't it time you took this bad boy for a test drive?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, David Vengley, Mars Base Red Seven",
          "text": "“Oh yeah,I remember, you already bagged one of those bad boys backin the city.”Sal chuckled.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Max Dickins, My Groupon Adventure, page 93",
          "text": "This bad boy wasn't shy in letting us know either, as three of us struggled to pull it ashore. Again, it felt totally bizarre to be physically straining every sinew to drag a massive dangerous animal towards me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "A powerful or impressive product or item."
      ],
      "id": "en-bad_boy-en-noun-I9wj9-E6",
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        "(slang) A powerful or impressive product or item."
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          "word": "bad baby"
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        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bad, boy."
      ],
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          "bad",
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          "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 100",
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          "ref": "2012, Douglas MacKinnon, Vengeance Is Mine",
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          "text": "Many school music teachers and directors are not primarily clarinetists and, knowing little of the subtle intricacies of this \"bad boy\" of instruments, can teach little more than the fingering.",
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          "ref": "1988, Writers Forum, numbers 14-17, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs",
          "text": "[…] he groaned as he twisted his arm over his head to follow the groove to the right wheel well, \"if this bad boy connects right there, then it can't be a light.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992 November 16, “The POWERstation 220: Here today. More tomorrow. [Advertisement]”, in InfoWorld, volume 14, number 46, page 137",
          "text": "So isn't it time you took this bad boy for a test drive?",
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          "text": "“Oh yeah,I remember, you already bagged one of those bad boys backin the city.”Sal chuckled.",
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          "ref": "2016, Max Dickins, My Groupon Adventure, page 93",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.