good ol' boy
7
9.9
- noun
- /ɡʊd oʊl bɔɪ/
- Slur
:
[Ofensivo: hombre blanco sureño, conservador y partidario del amiguismo]
- Just two good ol' boys gone fishing.
- good ol' boys network
- good ol' boys club
Examples
-
I know about the good ol' boy.
Blog text (20) -
Call those good ol' boys in Milwaukee.
-
Sure was a good ol' boy.
-
The good ol' boy did it anyway, though.
Fiction book (2000) -
Not to mention those good ol' boy judges.
-
The system works better when the good ol' boy network is dismantled.
Blog text (17) -
It's the good ol' boys network, tried and true.
Blog text (6) -
They look like a bunch of good ol' boys to me.
Fiction book (1990) -
On the streets in front of our parties, it looked like a get-together of good ol' boys, and the police didn't bother us.
Fiction book (1997) -
The good ol' boy quickly offered his help when his friends needed repairs on their trucks.
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'good', the dialectal 'ol'' (old) and 'boy' can infer a basic sense of a likable or familiar male ('good old boy' as a friendly, longtime guy), so part of the meaning is compositional. However the phrase carries strong region-specific and socio-political connotations (Southern US network, male loyalty, sometimes conservative or pejorative sense) that are not predictable from the parts alone, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Good ol' boy may come from men in small southern towns calling a longtime friend a good ol' boy — a trusted man who helped with work, hunting, and local favors. That's why today good ol' boy often means a local, mostly white man who is 'friendly', 'loyal' to his male friends, and who likes 'old-fashioned' local ways.