the.com/boyfriend
A man you trust enough to blame for your bad mood.
means The man you're dating steadily and non-marriedly — your chosen, ongoing romantic partner.
from A straightforward 19th-century compound of 'boy' plus 'friend,' first used for a male sweetheart. The word rode in on the same wave that gave English 'girlfriend' — both coinages tracking the shift toward dating as a recognized social stage before marriage, rather than courtship arranged by families.
- origin
- Word first printed in 1850s American English
- economics
- Splits bills, rarely splits the mental load
- linguistics
- No agreed-upon term once you hit thirty
- biology
- Species known to forget anniversaries yearly