† a. A boy-attendant (obs.). b. A boy (in livery) employed in the place of or to assist a footman; a page-boy.
1590. Greene, Mourn. Garm., Wks. (Grosart), IX. 139. On he paceth with his men and his foot-boyes towardes Assyria.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., III. ii. 69.
| Base Muleteers of France, | |
| Like Pesant foot-Boyes doe they keepe the Walls, | |
| And dare not take vp Armes, like Gentlemen. |
1644. Prynne & Walker, Fiennes’ Trial, 5. On Friday night late I received a Note from your Foot-boy, without name or date, with a datelesse, namelesse Paper inclosed, pretended to be a Proclamation of my Lord Generals, to appeare at a Councell of Warre on Thursday next.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 96, 20 June, ¶ 1. From my being first a Foot-boy at Fourteen, to my present Station of a Nobleman’s Porter in the Year of my Age above-mentioned.
1837. Hawthorne, Twice-Told T. (1851), I. ix. 163. Will not the whole household—the decent Mrs. Wakefield, the smart maid-servant, and the dirty little foot-boy—raise a hue-and-cry, through London streets, in pursuit of their fugitive lord and master?
