noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An American infantryman, especially one from World War I. US

   "The "dough boys" were loaded into army wagons drawn by mules, and with the cavalry at the flanks the relief column started."

2. 2
   a rounded lump of dough that is deep-fried and served as hot bread wordnet
3. 3
   A kind of flour dumpling.
4. 4
   an American infantryman in World War I wordnet
5. 5
   Frybread.

Synonyms

All synonyms

anzacaskariaussiebochediggerfritz

Example

More examples

"The "dough boys" were loaded into army wagons drawn by mules, and with the cavalry at the flanks the relief column started."

Etymology

From dough + boy; its use to refer to an infantryman is unknown, but dates from 1847, during the Mexican–American War.

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