Etymologically
Log in

boss

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 19:39. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

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

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

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