A town rowdy; a gay fellow. See also G’HAL.
1846. A smile on his lips peculiar to one of the bo-hoys.—Knick. Mag., xxvii. 467 (May).
1847. [He] had lived too long in the “wire-grass” region to misunderstand the character of that peculiar class of b’hoys who dwell there.—Id., xxix. 204 (March).
1848. “You see,” ses he, “I’m one of the b’hoys!—a out and out Fell’s Pinter” [Baltimore].—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 78 (Phila.).
1848. Go it, all ye “g’hals,” and all ye “b’hoys,” as much as you can, while you are young.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 167.
1848. He might have told you of that same member of Congress writing to them, calling them the b’hoys, telling them how much he desired to be among them,… saying in the end, “go on, b’hoys, and don’t be surprised if I join you before you reach the table lands of Mexico.”—Mr. Tompkins of Mississippi, House of Representatives, March 14: Cong. Globe, p. 492. Appendix.
1848.
| I’ve sunk a very pretty sum | |
| In rides and sweetmeats past; | |
| And haven’t now the first red cent— | |
| She drained me to the last. | |
| How green I was, in earnest grave, | |
| I certainly must say; | |
| I shall be cut by all the ‘B’hoys’ | |
| For courting Alice Gray. | |
Durivage and Burnham, ‘Stray Subjects, Alice Grays,’ p. 60. |
1848. The eldest and youngest—Shem and Japhet—were a couple of the ‘b’hoys’—and Ham was the very well disposed young gentleman, who slept at home o’nights.—Id., p. 94.
1850. The b’hoy was as crop-haired and large-fisted as ever, and appeared now, in the depth of winter, the same as in midsummer, in his shirt sleeves.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘Moneypenny,’ p. 128 (N.Y.).
1851. “Uncle Sam and his B’hoys.”—Article by J. K. Paulding, U.S. and Democratic Review, April.
1852. The story of one of the Gothamite ‘B’hoys,’ who, in reply to the inquiring remark of a gentleman, ‘I wish, Sir, to go to Brooklyn,’ said: ‘Well, why the d—l don’t you go-o-o to Brooklyn?’—Knick. Mag., xxxix. 95 (Jan.).
1852. So rapid is the brush that they are soon close upon the other sleigh, and Schuyler can distinguish that its occupants are of not-to-be-mistaken Bowery cut—veritable ‘b’hoys.’—C. A. Bristed, ‘The Upper Ten Thousand,’ p. 29 (N.Y.).
1852. Many of the New England b’hoys almost imagine themselves back in the land of pumpkin pies.—The Oregonian, Dec. 25.
1853. My off-handed manner just suited the b’hoy, on whom any superfluous politeness would have been thrown away.—Knick. Mag., xlii. 60 (July).
1854. They were then as gallus a set of b’hoys as ever run “wid der mersheen” at the great fire of Sodom and Gomorrah.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 127.
1855. Now, Sam, if you have no religion of your own, as you spell your name B’-h-o-y, where is prescription to stop?—Oregon Weekly Times, June.
1855. Trot along, b’hoys, keep up with the show, and you will get a good look at the elephant by and bye.—Weekly Oregonian, July 7.
1857. [These lines] were probably written by one of the ‘B’hoys’ to his inamorata:—
| ‘AND when the reverend sire shall say, | |
| ‘My son, take thou this daughter,’ | |
| I ’ll answer him, in joyous tone, | |
| ‘I shan’t do nothin’ shorter!’ | |
| ‘Will you, my son, support and nourish | |
| This flower I give to thee?’ | |
| I ’ll give my yellow kids a flourish, | |
| And answer, ‘Yes, Sir-ee!’’ | |
Knick. Mag., xlix. 95 (Jan.). |
1857. They can twist off the corner of a sacred subject with as great a degree of nonchalance as any of the “b’hoys.”—San Francisco Call, Feb. 6.
1857. So he quit skinning calves, and took to skinning the “b’hoys.”—Id., March 26.
1858. Dramshops, where the b’hoys met every Saturday evening, to shoot for whiskey and get drunk.—Oregon Weekly Times, June 19.
1866. “I want,” said the stranger, “to see a b’hoy,—a real b’hoy.” “There ’s one,” replied his companion, pointing to a strapping fellow, in a red shirt and crush hat, waiting for a job at the corner.—H. T. Tuckerman, Through Broadway, Atlantic Monthly, p. 727/1 (Dec.).
