jack boy

jack boy (plural jack boys)

1. (slang) Alternative form of jackboy
   • 2010, Cam Rascoe, Writings of Rascoe:

     Trey led into the story of two misguided young men's futile attempts at being jack boys.

   • 2012, Bobby "BJ" Austin, By All Mean$, page 20:

     KB, Guillotine, Nephew, and BJ was headed to a party in Pleasant Grove to confront a local jack boy named Snooky. He was putting out the word that his jack crew was hot and KB and his peeps were on the top of his hit list.

   • 2014, Keith Nesbitt, Freezing in Duval: The Trilogy, page 27:

     As Blaze led the way through the club they seen all the local dope boys and the local jack boys everybody came out to show love to a real nigga.

   • 2015, Gregory McDowell, Chosen Path:

     Reds was a jack boy who left mostof his victims breathless.

2. (slang, Christ's Hospital) A low-ranking employee who is responsible for dispensing drinks to the other workers.
   • 1923, Edmund Blunden, Christ's Hospital: A Retrospect, page 68:

     As the last order are destined to be jack boys, and to other inferior offices, so the first are monitors of the ward, whose province it is to walk up and down the table in the hall, at meals, during the time service is performing, and to take care that the others do not play nor talk, but attend to their duty and singing, both before they sit down to eat, and when they rise up from table;

   • 1958, The Christ's Hospital Book, page 207:

     Perhaps the most worrying trade was that of jack boy. This genius presided over the fulness and emptiness of a certain huge vessel which supplied our mugs' with water at dinner time, and was compelled to sit at the very end of the table in order that the 'jack' might be safely accommodated.

   • 1987, Orphanotrophian, The Fortunate Blue-coat Boy, Or, Memoirs of the Life and Happy Adventures of Mr. Benjamin Templeman, Formerly a Scholar in Christ's Hospital, page 78:

     When they are entered into the King's ward , whilst they are in the last order they are generally jack boys, as they are called, that is, they fetch the beer from the buttery in leathern jacks, and serve it out to the rest of the boys at their meals.

3. (slang, obsolete) A boy or young man who is hired to run errands and perform unskilled labor.
   • 1915, The Railroad Worker - Volume 12, page 41:

     The only fault I find at Moberly is that they are mighty shy of “jack boys;" that is the fault all along the Wabash, only more so at Moberly, but I have assurance from the Officials that this will be taken care of in the near future.

   • 1919, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor, Social and Industrial Conditions in the United States, page 157:

     The jack boys and canvas pickers are to be under the jurisdiction of the union, with this express provision. That these two sections are not to be under the agreed scale for trimmers, but are to be subject to a special scale of wages, which scale is to be subject to the decision of the board of arbitration.

   • 1920, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Chicago Joint Board, Decisions of the Trade Board and the Board of Arbitration, page 461:

     Sore weeks later – at the end of August – one of three "jack boys" in the trimming room, a lad of 19 receiving something more than $20 per week, was taken ill and died.