link boy
nounEtymology From link (“torch, light”) + boy.
1
Historical A boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.
- “Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think,” said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch.1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:
- By the early eighteenth century link-boys had long been part of London's criminal and sexual mythology.2009, Dan Cruikshank, The Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, page 94:
- Synonyms
- linkman, torchbearer