Also 7 white-boy.
† 1. A favorite, pet or darling boy: a term of endearment for a boy or (usually) man. Obs.
Cf. WHITE a. 9, and white son in 11 e.
1599. Porter, Angry Wom. Abingt. (Percy Soc.), 69. Whose white boy is that same?
c. 1600. Timon, I. iii. (1842), 10. Gelas. … What speake the virgines of me?… Pæd. They terme you delight of men, white boye, Noble without comparison.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, I. xiii. 20. The Pope was loth to adventure his darlings into danger; those white-boyes were to stay at home with his Holinesse their tender father.
1690. C. Nesse, O. & N. Test., I. 377. Joseph … was not only his earthly fathers white-boy, but his heavenly’s also.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xvi. Were war at the gates, I should be one of her [sc. Q. Elizabeth’s] white boys.
† 2. A surpliced choir-boy. Obs. nonce-use.
1691. Mrs. D’Anvers, Academia, 32. The Organs set up with a ding, The White-men roar, and White-Boys sing.
3. (usually with capital.) A name adopted by or applied to the members of various illegal, rebellious, or riotous associations. a. Eng. Hist.
1644. (title) The Devills White Boyes: or, A mixture of malicious Malignants.
1684. Dryden, trans. Maimbourg’s Hist. League, Postscr. 47. When a Body of white Boys was already appearing in the West. [Footnote by Sir W. Scott, White was the dress affected by those who crowded to see Monmouth in his western tour.]
b. Irish Hist. A member of a secret agrarian association formed in 1761: for the reason of the name see quot. 1762. Also attrib.
1762. Ann. Reg., Chron., 84. Rioters … called Levellers … likewise called White Boys, from their wearing shirts over their other cloaths, the better to distinguish each other by night.
1808–. [see RIGHT BOYS].
1842. Madden, United Irishmen, I. 25. The Whiteboy disturbances … had no more connection with religious controversy than with the disputes between the Scotists and Thomists. Whiteboyism was an association against high rents and tithes.
1842. S. C. Hall, Ireland, II. 79. Ambrose Power Esq., was murdered on his own hearth by a party of Whiteboys.
1881. Dillon, in Standard, 25 Jan. It was … a relic of the Whiteboy days.
c. transf.
1768. H. Walpole, Lett. to Strafford, 25 June. Those black dogs, the whiteboys or coal-heavers, are dispersed or taken.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, III. 290. Who knows but you are one o’ the tories yourself; or one o’ the whiteboys—or cow boys—or skinners.
Hence Whiteboyism, the principles or practices of the Irish Whiteboys (see 3 b).
1778. Phil. Surv. S. Irel., 313. Till some step is taken in favour of tillage and the poor Whiteboyism will probably remain.
1842. [see 3 b].
1893. Times, 2 Oct., 3/6. Five men, who had been sentenced at the Kerry Assizes in 1888 to seven years’ imprisonment for moonlighting and whiteboyism, were released.
