Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A boy or young man.
  • noun Informal A man of any age; a fellow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A boy; a youth; a stripling: often used familiarly or affectionately in speaking of or to a man of any age.
  • noun A male sweetheart: correlative to lass.
  • noun A servingman; a servant.
  • noun An obsolete preterit and past participle of lead.
  • noun A thong of leather; a shoe-latchet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A boy; a youth; a stripling.
  • noun A companion; a comrade; a mate.
  • noun (Bot.) See Boy's love, under Boy.
  • p. p. of lead, to guide.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A boy or young man.
  • noun UK A jack the lad; a boyo.
  • noun A familiar term of address for a young man.
  • noun A groom who works with horses (also called stable-lad).
  • noun Ireland The penis.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a male child (a familiar term of address to a boy)
  • noun a boy or man

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ladde, perhaps of Scandinavian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English ladde ("foot soldier, servant"). Possibly cognate with Dutch lid ("member").

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Golden lads and girls all must,

    As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

    -Cymbeline quotes

    July 29, 2009