Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a friend or neighbour, one of one’s group or gang.

1928		R. Fisher Walls Of Jericho 26: He’s my boy. Ain’t you my boy, biggy?
1939		R. Chandler ‘Trouble Is My Business’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 196: The family would hear about it and the old man would guess whose boys they were.
1949		R. Chandler Little Sister 27: A couple of boys to take care of you.
1957		R. Prather Always Leave ’Em Dying 115: Maybe the Guardians wanted the gravy, or the glory, or maybe Trammel was just too damned stinking to live—but they knocked their boy off.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 16: [The ball] came in on one bounce, like it was supposed to, and slightly breaking into a curve. It was all mine. ‘Waste it, panín,’ shouted my boy Waneko.
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 91: You wouldn’t try to bullshit your boy, would you?
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 86: We bartended for the ‘boys’.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 128: He was supposed to be my boy.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 8: You still here because you couldn’t leave without me, your so-called boy.
2004		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 1: boy – very close friend.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 45: One of your boys got into it last night in my area [...] One of your homeboys, [...] the inmates that your real friendly with.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 167: ‘I was more than your business partner. I was your boy’.

2. (US black) a low-status gang member.

1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: boy n. gang member of low status.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 28/1: boy n. 1 a gang recruit, a young gangmember working to earn his gang patch.

3. a ‘character’, an eccentric.

1975

‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 124: He’s a boy, innee? [...] Got an answer for everythin’ he has.