The Dutch settlements in North America all came under English rule in the 1660s and 1670s, but Dutch continued to be spoken in the region long afterward. In American English, the lexical heritage of the Dutch colonies includes dope, stoop (meaning “porch”), and Santa Claus. Perhaps the most pervasive Dutch loanword is boss, from the Dutch baas, meaning “master.” The word first appears in the form boss in 1806, used by Washington Irving. Part of its success seems to have resulted from an American aversion to master, which was common in British use.
Noun (1)
every morning the boss hands out a list of top-priority tasks Verb (1)
she bossed that project for years, until she was promoted again bossed the entire job site for a yearbossed the entire gang of electricians on the construction projectAdjective
a boss new rock band
that's a really boss stereo you've got
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Sides’s compulsively readable 16th-century history is about the gulf between decency and a boss’s orders.—Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 5 June 2024 Despite his reputation as an avuncular figure, Biden can be something of an insular soul and a demanding boss, especially for new faces.—Philip Elliott, TIME, 5 June 2024
Verb
Certainly, the Sino-Russian relationship is not without its strains, and existing tensions may be exacerbated as China grows more confident and is tempted to start bossing around the Russians in a more heavy-handed way—something that no ruler in Moscow would take lightly.—Alexander Gabuev, Foreign Affairs, 9 Apr. 2024 In August of that year, Mattson Tomlin boarded to co-write with Reeves, and in late January 2023, DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran gave the film a title and date of Oct. 3, 2025.—Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Mar. 2024
Adjective
Binning notes that Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of the Niles area, a former Traficant aide who won his ex-boss' congressional seat, was re-elected Tuesday by his smallest-ever margin, defeating GOP former state legislator Christina Hagan by 7.5 percentage points.—Sabrina Eaton, cleveland, 6 Nov. 2020 This excludes things like putting in legendaries for end of mission rewards or taking them out of non-boss chests.—Paul Tassi, Forbes, 12 Mar. 2021 See all Example Sentences for boss
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'boss.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
borrowed from Dutch baas "master, person in authority," earlier, "friend and master, head of a household," going back to Middle Dutch baes, used as a surname, of uncertain origin
Note:
Compare late Middle Low German bas "superintendent of dikes," Frisian baas "master," the latter perhaps a loanword from Dutch. A relationship with Old High German basa "father's sister," German Base, name for various female relatives, is very unlikely. — The word boss was borrowed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from New York and New Jersey Dutch; as a name for a person in authority in Dutch it is already reported in New England in 1653—see citations in Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, and M. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms (though the alleged use by John Winthrop is most likely a misreading—see The Journal of John Winthrop 1630-1649 [Cambridge, 1996], p. 161). The adoption of Dutch long a as a rounded vowel is paralleled by dollar.
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