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A houseboy is a man paid to do general work in someone else’s home — cleaning, carrying things, answering the door, helping in the kitchen. The job is real; the word is old, and it is not a kind word. It is built from house + boy, and that second piece is the problem. In colonial homes (British homes in Asia and Africa, and similar setups elsewhere), employers often called an adult man “boy” if he was a servant, especially if he was not white. Age did not matter. So houseboy can name a grown man, and it talks down to him. You will meet it in older books, films, and travel writing. People still use it in a few places out of habit, but many listeners hear it as dated and disrespectful. In careful speech now, people say a male domestic worker, a manservant (also old-fashioned), or they just name the job: cleaner, cook, . Do not use houseboy as a friendly label for a young man who lives in a house — that is not what it means.
男僕、男傭（舊稱；帶貶意，殖民時期常用 boy 叫成年男僕）
組成house + boy. House is the home. Boy here is not “a male child”: in older, often colonial English it was also used for a male servant, including an adult, and that use is offensive.
同家族的字
- housemaidsame house- for a servant who works in the home
- housekeepersame house- for someone employed to run or clean a house
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
houseboynoun/ˈhaʊsbɔɪ/
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historicalA young male domestic servant, especially in a British colony in former times.
- House servants are usually either Chinese or Tamil, the former predominating, especially in towns of any size. The domestic staff will in general consist of a houseboy (in large establishments two houseboys), a water carrier (tukang ayer), whose duties include washing dishes and preparing baths, a cook, a gardener, a chauffeur or sais, and perhaps an ayah (if Chinese, amah) or two, according to the size of the family.
- A married man with a family of three living in a private house will require in most cases a cook, houseboy, an amah (female servant) for washing and ironing, a second amah to take care of small children or infants, and one or possibly two gardeners depending on the size of the lot. A syce (chauffeur) is optional in each individual case. Cooks, houseboys, and amahs are usually Chinese, while gardeners and chauffeurs are Malay.
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offensivederogatoryhistoricalA non-white adult male domestic servant.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。