attaboy

See also: atta boy

English

Alternative forms

• atta boy, ataboy
• thatta boy, thattaboy

Etymology

Variant pronunciation of "That's the boy!", a cry of encouragement, especially to children and pet dogs.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈætəˌbɔɪ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Interjection

attaboy

1. (idiomatic, colloquial) Used to show encouragement or approval to a boy, man, or male animal.

   Attaboy! That's the way to hit a home run!

Translations

Used to show encouragement or approval to a boy or a man

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 好樣的／好样的 (zh) (hǎoyàngde)

• Finnish: aika poika (fi)
• French: bon gars m, bravo (fr)
• Georgian: ყოჩაღ (ka) (q̇očaɣ)
• German: gut gemacht, guter Junge m, Das ist mein Mann! (pronounced with stress on "Das")
• Irish: maith mo ghasúr é
• Italian: bravo (it) m
• Japanese: でかした (ja) (dekashita), いいぞ (ja) (ii zo), うまいぞ (ja) (umai zo)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: eferim

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: flink gutt, flink bisk (to a dog)

• Polish: zuch chłopak m
• Russian: молоде́ц (ru) m (molodéc), молодчи́на (ru) m or f (molodčína), краса́вчик (ru) m (krasávčik)
• Spanish: ¡bien hecho!
• Swedish: heja (sv)

Noun

attaboy (plural attaboys)

1. A cry of "attaboy"; an accolade.
   • 2007 June 30, David M. Halbfinger, “How a Fan of Comic Books Transformed Himself Into a Hollywood Player”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     LOS ANGELES, June 29 — Drink in hand, attaboys coming at him from every direction, Tom DeSanto was living the fanboy dream.

See also

• attagirl