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Glite Dictionary
Teddy boy

Teddy boy

2 9.9
A young British man in the 1950s and 1960s who wore long jackets and narrow trousers and acted rebellious
  • noun
  • /ˈtɛdi bɔɪ/
  • Archaic
translation icon : Teddy boy
  • I gather he was beaten up by Teddy boys.

And I had an old Teddy Boy suit on and went to school like it the next day and got sent straight home.

Examples

  • The documentary highlighted the rebellious spirit of the Teddy boys during the post-war years in Britain.

  • And I had an old Teddy Boy suit on and went to school like it the next day and got sent straight home.

    Anything Goes With James English

  • "Think old Teddy Boy could manage that self-satisfied cigarette pose with this thing up his nose?" Matt laughed and threw the gun down on the seat.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Middle-aged women are here to recall their long-lost days as trendy mums, and Teddy boys of years ago have brought their children to show them what it was like when dad was a teenage bopper.

    This Is Elvis (1981)

  • In the 1960s, many young men adopted the Teddy boy style, complete with drape jackets and narrow trousers.

  • He was known around town as a Teddy boy because of his distinctive fashion choices from the Edwardian era.

Synonyms

Ted
vsTeddy boy
  • Archaic
968 9.9

A young man in 1950s and 1960s Britain who wore smart old-fashioned clothes and liked to be rebellious

focuses on the specific Edwardian clothing and narrow trousers as a group identity

Surface Forms

Teddy boy singular
Teddy boys plural

Morphology

Teddy + boy

The compound refers to a specific historical British youth subculture and not to a literal 'Teddy' plus 'boy'. ‘Teddy’ here is a culturally specific label (not a transparent lexical item) and 'boy' does not signal the distinctive Edwardian-style clothing, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not be able to derive the meaning.

Etymology

Teddy boy comes from young men who copied old 'Edwardian' clothes after World War II; one popular idea is that the nickname Teddy comes from 'Edward' and boy means a young man. That's why the name describes British young men of the 1950s who wore long jackets and tight trousers and often acted in a rebellious way.