poor boy
- noun
- /ˈpʊr bɔɪ/
- US
:
sándwich po' boy
- Across Louisiana, the poor boy sandwich has become a beloved culinary tradition.
Examples
-
In New Orleans, you can’t visit without trying the famous poor boy sandwich filled with fried shrimp and creole sauce.
-
The restaurant's signature dish is a shrimp poor boy stuffed with lettuce and tomato.
-
I ordered a delicious poor boy for lunch at the local deli.
-
I ordered a delicious poor boy for lunch.
-
The restaurant serves the best poor boys in town!
-
My favorite lunch spot features a spicy roast beef poor boy that keeps customers coming back.
-
After a long day, he enjoyed a classic poor boy loaded with ham and melted cheese.
Synonyms
800
1.0
Two slices of bread with food like meat or cheese between them for a meal
27
2.8
A long bread roll filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables
12
1.0
A sandwich with sliced ham between two slices of bread
11
8.2
A large sandwich on a long roll filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables
11
2.7
A long bread roll cut open and filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables
11
4.4
A long sandwich filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables
10
8.9
A large sandwich made from a long roll split lengthwise and filled with meat
10
2.5
A sandwich with thin slices of beef and melted cheese in a long roll
9
8.3
A large sandwich on a long roll filled with meats and cheese
6
5.0
A long sandwich filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables
4
7.7
A large sandwich on a long crusty roll with meat and cheese
3
3.2
A long sandwich filled with meat, cheese and salad
2
2.1
A long bread roll split open and filled with meats, cheese, and salad vegetables
1
2.8
A large sandwich on a long crusty roll filled with meats, cheese, and vegetables
1
8.4
A sandwich made with bread and a filling like ham and cheese
1
1.8
A crusty roll filled with ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard pressed and served hot
1
9.9
A large sandwich on a long crusty roll filled with meats, cheese, and lettuce
A large sandwich made with a long crusty roll filled with meats, cheese, and vegetables
How Filling
Surface Forms
Morphology
poor + boy
The meaning 'a large sandwich' cannot be derived from the literal constituents 'poor' (impoverished) and 'boy' (a male); a B1 learner knowing those words would read this literally rather than infer a food item. This is a regionally specific, lexicalized dish name (often written 'po' boy') whose culinary sense is idiomatic and unpredictable from the parts, so it is opaque to learners.
Etymology
Poor boy comes from New Orleans. One popular story says two brothers gave big rolls to hungry, out-of-work men and called them poor boys, so the name stuck and today poor boy means a large 'sandwich'.