wide boy
a dishonest man
TRANSLATION
wide boy = der Gauner --- GOOGLE INDEX wide boy: approximately 300,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Featuring the escapades of the WIDE BOY south-London brothers, Rodney and Del Boy Trotter (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst and David Jason), Only Fools and Horses became one of the best-loved British comedies ever screened, and also gained a substantial international following.
(artsdesk.com)
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Nelson is a vividly drawn character, a working-class WIDE BOY with an absent dad, a pregnant 15-year-old sister and a sideline in mobile phone thievery.
(The Guardian)
(artsdesk.com)
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Nelson is a vividly drawn character, a working-class WIDE BOY with an absent dad, a pregnant 15-year-old sister and a sideline in mobile phone thievery.
(The Guardian)
Did you
know?
wide boy
noun phrase, slang
- a man who is dishonest or who deceives people in the way he does business
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
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Wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing. The word "wide" is in this sense means wide-awake or sharp-witted. Newspapers of the late 1940s and 1950s often referred to wide boys when reporting about small-time criminals such as illegal ticket sellers, fraudsters and black market traders. It has become more generally used to describe a dishonest trader or a petty criminal who depends on being clever rather than using force.
The word came to public attention in 1937 with the publication of Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby, a novel about gamblers and hustlers. During World War II such individuals became involved in the black market, but the term only began to appear in newspapers from 1947. They were typically flashily dressed men (velvet collars and horrible-looking neckties for example) who often relied on dubious business transactions to make a living instead of holding down a real job.
The wide boy, who lived on the fringes of real criminality, is closely associated with the period during and after World War II in Britain. He always seemed to have coveted luxury items that were unobtainable during that period of austerity (except on the black market), whether it was nylons or cigarettes.
(sources: adapted from Wikipedia and World Wide Words)
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SYNONYMS
con artist, crook, petty criminal, fraudster, rascal, swindler
noun phrase, slang
- a man who is dishonest or who deceives people in the way he does business
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
Wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing. The word "wide" is in this sense means wide-awake or sharp-witted. Newspapers of the late 1940s and 1950s often referred to wide boys when reporting about small-time criminals such as illegal ticket sellers, fraudsters and black market traders. It has become more generally used to describe a dishonest trader or a petty criminal who depends on being clever rather than using force.
The word came to public attention in 1937 with the publication of Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby, a novel about gamblers and hustlers. During World War II such individuals became involved in the black market, but the term only began to appear in newspapers from 1947. They were typically flashily dressed men (velvet collars and horrible-looking neckties for example) who often relied on dubious business transactions to make a living instead of holding down a real job.
The wide boy, who lived on the fringes of real criminality, is closely associated with the period during and after World War II in Britain. He always seemed to have coveted luxury items that were unobtainable during that period of austerity (except on the black market), whether it was nylons or cigarettes.
(sources: adapted from Wikipedia and World Wide Words)
---
SYNONYMS
con artist, crook, petty criminal, fraudster, rascal, swindler
