Boswell

//ˈbɒzˌwɛl// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A devoted admirer and recorder of a person's words and deeds.

    ""I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.""

  2. 2
    a devoted admirer and recorder of another's words and deeds wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A Scottish habitational surname from Old French of Norman origin from Beuzeville in France.
  2. 2
    A Scottish habitational surname from Old French of Norman origin from Beuzeville in France.; James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson.
  3. 3
    A place name:; A hamlet in Elkington parish, East Lindsey district, Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TF2790).
  4. 4
    A place name:; A town in Grant Township, Benton County, Indiana, United States.
  5. 5
    A place name:; A town in Choctaw County, Oklahoma, United States.
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    A place name:; A borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States.
  2. 7
    A place name:; A community on Kootenay Lake in the Kootenays, south-east British Columbia, Canada.
  3. 8
    A place name:; A former cannery town on the Central Coast of British Columbia.

Synonyms

All synonyms
annalistchroniclerdiaristjames boswell

Example

More examples

""I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.""

Etymology

Scottish surname, from Norman, named after Beuzeville, from Beuze + -ville ("Bosi's farm"); first element from Old Norse Bosi, from Proto-Germanic *bausuz.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.