link boy

English

Alternative forms

• link-boy, linkboy

Etymology

From link (“torch, light”) +‎ boy.

Noun

link boy (plural link boys)

1. (historical) A boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.
   • 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:

     “Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think,” said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch.

   • 2009, Dan Cruikshank, The Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, page 94:

     By the early eighteenth century link-boys had long been part of London's criminal and sexual mythology.

Synonyms

• linkman
• torchbearer

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967