bad boy
108
6.1
- noun
- /bæd bɔɪ/
- Informal
:
chico malo
- Her family moved away, but she stayed and married the bad boy (my father) and soon realized she was undone.
- a bad boy persona
- love bad boys
- good girl and bad boy
Dang, you must have been a bad boy that year.
- Dang, you must have been a bad boy that year.
- I mean, Uma as you, Travis, the bad boy of Silicon Valley.
- I mean, and look, he's that South Florida bad boy, Maz Vidal.
- And there's a lot of women who like bad boys.
- And it's like he's embracing being like the bad boy and he thinks he can make it cool.
- Always picks the bad boy, even when I was little.
- And if we do nothing, the bad boys are going to prevail.
Examples
-
"Mr. Waters, what have you been up to?" "Professor, I've been a very bad boy."
Fiction book (2001) -
She was attracted to the bad boy image, drawn in by his rebellious nature and charm.
-
I have been a bad boy.
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Do women always choose bad boys, or do good men get a try looking?
Blog text (18) -
Let's grab us a couple of these bad boys and hit the road.
-
Anyone can see that guy is a bad boy who will make you struggle.
Blog text (25) -
Then, when she was a teenager, she fell for a bad boy and got pregnant.
Academic text (2010) -
This bad boy was just sitting in the park right in front of a sign that said "Portland's oldest tree."
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Today's hot men are all your classic bad boy villains -- the vampire.
Blog text (15) -
Katy Perry loves to try taming bad boys, and John Mayer is the latest.
Blog text (21)
Synonyms
Antonyms
How Rebellious
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'bad' (having undesirable or immoral qualities) with 'boy' (a male person), producing the straightforward idea of a male who behaves badly or rebelliously. This adjective+noun pattern and its basic interpretation are common across languages and discourse, so a B1 learner who knows both words would very likely infer the intended meaning (though some connotative senses like being 'exciting' are pragmatic extras).
Etymology
Bad boy comes from a simple picture of a boy who is bad and breaks the rules. People began to use that image for men who act wild or against the rules, so bad boy now means 'rebellious or unconventional' and often 'exciting but problematic'.