unboy

English edit

Etymology edit

un- +‎ boy

Verb edit

unboy (third-person singular simple present unboys, present participle unboying, simple past and past participle unboyed)

(transitive) To divest of the traits of a boy.
- 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707, →OCLC:
  it was now time to unboy him, by putting him into some action and acquaintance of business

Usage notes edit

The forms unboys and unboying are vanishingly rare or non-existent.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “unboy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)