Entry · catalog no. 7413
boy, bye
/ /ˌbɔɪ ˈbaɪ/ /boy-BYE
interjection · Black America, nationwide · 2010s
✓ Verified
1.
A dismissal — half a laugh, all door. "Boy" cuts him down to size and "bye" closes the conversation; together they are the shortest possible review of a man's argument.
“He said he'd change this time. Boy, bye.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American women's vernacular, in daily use for generations before print caught up to it. Beyoncé carried it worldwide on "Sorry" (Lemonade, April 2016) — "tell him, boy, bye" — and mugs and merch followed within the year. Often credited to the song; the song was quoting its elders.
2016
Beyoncé's "Sorry" carries the phrase worldwide (April)
2017
Mainstream media and merch adopt it
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Black America, nationwide · 2010s
Spoken by
Black women; now general
$BOYBYEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady10 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
85/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2016
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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See also