Boy v.

[f. BOY sb.¹] In various nonce-usages. a. intr. To play the boy, act as a boy; b. trans. To call (one) ‘boy’; c. To represent (a woman’s part) on the stage, as boys did before the Restoration; d. To furnish or supply with boys.

1568.  Jacob & Esau, II. ii. in Hazl., Dodsl., II. 211. So prattling, so trattling, so chiding, so boying.

1573.  G. Harvey, Letter-Bk. (1884), 48. If he boied me now … I hard him not.

1606.  Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 220. I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra Boy my greatnesse.

1616.  Beaum. & Fl., Knt. Malta, II. iii. (R.). Boy did he call me … I am tainted … Bafl’d and boy’d.

a. 1635.  Corbet, Poems (1807), 126. But wert girl’d and boy’d.

1650.  H. More, in Enthus. Tri. (1656), 126. How ready the world will be to boy him out of countenance.

1655.  Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 142. The gates were shut, and partly man-ned, partly boy-ed, against him.