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boss

Etymology and origin of the English word boss

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English has two main words spelled boss: the employer or master, from Dutch baas, and the raised ornament or knob, from Old French boce.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /bɒs/, US /bɑːs/[4]

boss1 employer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
before 1649
Borrowed from
Dutch baas
Ultimate origin
Dutch (baas)

Etymology

The employer is borrowed from Dutch baas (“master”),[1][2][5] Middle Dutch baes, a word of obscure origin.[6][2] If it first meant “uncle”, it may be related to Old High German basa “aunt”, but this is doubted.[6] German Baas and the Scandinavian bas are borrowed from Dutch.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Before 1649, spelled base, in John Winthrop's History of New England, and basse in 1653, in American English.[1][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.[6] The form baas was used in English from the 1620s as the title of a Dutch ship's captain.[6]

Semantic evolution

The word came in through New Amsterdam, which became New York.[5] The modern spelling was current by 1806, when Washington Irving used it.[5][1] It was popular among the lower orders, and Mencken linked it to the “proletarian self-assertion” of the Jacksonian era, and British travellers and James Fenimore Cooper disliked it in the 1830s.[5] Part of its success came from an American aversion to master,[5][6] and perhaps from the need to tell free labour from slave.[6] Attributive use, as in boss carpenter, came in about the 1830s.[5] The verb is from 1856[1][6] and bossy from 1882.[1] The political boss who controls a party machine is American.[7][8] The slang adjective “excellent” is from the 1880s, revived in teen and jazz slang in the 1950s.[6]

Timeline

  • 1620s – baas, a Dutch captain.[6]
  • before 1649 – base, a master.[1][5]
  • 1806 – the spelling boss.[5]
  • 1856 – verb.[1][6]
  • 1882 – bossy.[1]
  • 1880s – adjective, excellent.[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. An employer or supervisor; the person in charge.
  2. A politician who controls a party or political machine.

Verb

  1. To supervise or control.
  2. To order about in a domineering way.

Adjective

  1. (slang) Excellent.

Word family

  • bossy
  • bossism
  • boss man

boss2 knob, stud

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
before 1325
Borrowed from
Old French boce via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old French (boce)

Etymology

The knob is inherited from Middle English boce,[1][3] borrowed from Old French boce (“hump, swelling”),[6][1][2] through Anglo-French bose and Anglo-Latin boci.[1] The Old French word is perhaps from Frankish *botja (“a blow, swelling from a blow”),[1][6] or from Vulgar Latin *bottia,[1][3][6] also seen in Italian bozza and Romanian boț “lump”; its origin is uncertain.[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A swelling: before 1325, in Cursor Mundi.[1] A hump on the back is from before 1300 in the OED.[9]

Semantic evolution

A raised ornament, as in carving or on a ceiling, is from 1382, in the Wycliffe Bible,[1][9] and the projection in the centre of a shield from about 1386.[9] A knoll or mass of rock is from 1598.[9] The verb, “to stand out”, is from before 1400.[1]

Timeline

  • before 1300 – a hump.[9]
  • before 1325 – a swelling.[1]
  • 1382 – a raised ornament.[1][9]
  • c. 1386 – the boss of a shield.[9]
  • 1598 – a mass of rock.[9]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A raised ornament or knob on a surface, as at the intersection of ribs in a vault.
  2. The rounded projection at the centre of a shield.
  3. A protruding part of a machine, as the hub of a wheel.

Verb

  1. To decorate with raised ornaments; to emboss.

Word family

  • emboss

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster also lists a dialect boss meaning “a young cow”.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  2. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Boss.” Etymologically, 15 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/boss. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.

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