BOSS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does boss mean? 

• BOSS (noun)
  The noun BOSS has 5 senses:

1. a person who exercises control over workers

2. a person responsible for hiring workers

3. a person who exercises control and makes decisions

4. a leader in a political party who controls votes and dictates appointments

5. a circular rounded projection or protuberance

  Familiarity information: BOSS used as a noun is common.

• BOSS (adjective)
  The adjective BOSS has 1 sense:

1. exceptionally good

  Familiarity information: BOSS used as an adjective is very rare.

• BOSS (verb)
  The verb BOSS has 1 sense:

1. raise in a relief

  Familiarity information: BOSS used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BOSS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who exercises control over workers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

boss; chief; foreman; gaffer; honcho

Context example:

if you want to leave early you have to ask the foreman

Hypernyms ("boss" is a kind of...):

supervisor (one who supervises or has charge and direction of)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "boss"):

baas (South African term for 'boss')

ganger (the foreman of a work gang)

assistant foreman; straw boss (a member of a work gang who supervises the other workers)

Derivation:

bossy (offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person responsible for hiring workers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

boss; hirer

Context example:

the boss hired three more men for the new job

Hypernyms ("boss" is a kind of...):

employer (a person or firm that employs workers)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "boss"):

guvnor ((British slang) boss)

old man ((slang) boss)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person who exercises control and makes decisions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

he is his own boss now

Hypernyms ("boss" is a kind of...):

leader (a person who rules or guides or inspires others)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "boss"):

drug baron; drug lord (a person who controls an organization dealing in illegal drugs)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A leader in a political party who controls votes and dictates appointments

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

boss; party boss; political boss

Context example:

party bosses have a reputation for corruption

Hypernyms ("boss" is a kind of...):

pol; political leader; politician; politico (a person active in party politics)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A circular rounded projection or protuberance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

boss; knob

Hypernyms ("boss" is a kind of...):

projection (any structure that branches out from a central support)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "boss"):

knobble (a small knob)

nailhead (flattened boss on the end of nail opposite to the point)

Derivation:

boss (raise in a relief)

• BOSS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Exceptionally good

Synonyms:

boss; brag

Context example:

his brag cornfield

Similar:

superior (of high or superior quality or performance)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

• BOSS (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they boss    ... he / she / it bosses   
Past simple: bossed   
Past participle: bossed   
-ing form: bossing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Raise in a relief

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

boss; emboss; stamp

Context example:

embossed stationery

Hypernyms (to "boss" is one way to...):

impress; imprint (mark or stamp with or as if with pressure)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "boss"):

block (stamp or emboss a title or design on a book with a block)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

boss (a circular rounded projection or protuberance)

 Context examples 

On the other hand, your boss may suddenly want you to work on a huge presentation over that weekend. Ugh.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Affected individuals exhibit short stature caused by rhizomelic shortening of the limbs, characteristic facies with frontal bossing and mid-face hypoplasia, exaggerated lumbar lordosis, limitation of elbow extension, genu varum, and trident hand.

(Achondroplasia, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Their mangers were placed circular in the middle of the room, and divided into several partitions, round which they sat on their haunches, upon bosses of straw.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“I’m takin’ ’m up for the boss to ’Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks that he can cure ’m.”

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock, which lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of Dartmoor.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Two men do the work, boss and assistant.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie’s father was the boss of the Joint. He was a clever man, was old Patrick.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"And you—you ain't never fed 'm after them first days of gettin' acquainted. I'm blamed if I can see how he works it out that you're the boss."

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Lead author Sally Wasef of Australia's Griffith University explained to the press, The ibis was considered to represent the god Thoth, the god of wisdom, the god of magic, the god of judgment, writing all sorts of things (...) If you had a boss that annoys you and you don't feel like you are getting a good judgment from him or you want fairness and justice, you go and ask Thoth to interfere and in return you promise to offer him an ibis, a mummified ibis, in his annual feast.

(Ancient Egyptians collected wild ibis birds for sacrifice, says study, Wikinews)

Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the Cabinet.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)