one of the boys
23
6.1
- idiom
- Informal
- After joining the team, he finally felt like he was one of the boys.
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Watch on YouTubeSo one of my brothers, he's one of the boys, you know, just one of the lads.
- So one of my brothers, he's one of the boys, you know, just one of the lads.
- And then we get a call from this guy that who had the facility and he's like, he's like calls one of the boys and he's like, fuck, you got to come get me.
Examples
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For over two years, I was accepted as one of the boys.
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Strickland used to come here now and then to have a square meal and to play chess with one of the boys.
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Maybe I could be one of the boys, huh?
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And so being one of the boys, he had to go off during grade school and start working.
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I was practically one of the boys.
Blog text (6) -
If you can't do it, have one of the boys do it.
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Yeah, that's me, all right, one of the boys.
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So one of my brothers, he's one of the boys, you know, just one of the lads.
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"Serves 'em right," said one of the boys, Lonnie Jackson, when we got on the bus.
Fiction book (1998) -
One of the boys in that school was the son of Enid Slouris.
Antonyms
How Included
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a man accepted as part of a group' is directly compositional from 'one' (a single member) + 'of the boys' (member of that group), so the membership/inclusion sense follows straightforwardly from the constituents. The 'one of the + plural noun' pattern is productive and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the words will readily infer the intended social-membership meaning.
Etymology
One of the boys may come from the image of a man joining a group of men and becoming one of the boys, sharing jokes, drinks, or games. So, it means being accepted as a 'peer' or 'equal' in a social group.