What does "guv'nor" mean?

An informal form of address to a man; see guv. This version is especially likely to be applied to the owner of a business or the landlord of a public house.

Guv'nor

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
An informal form of address to a man; see guv. This version is especially likely to be applied to the owner of a business or the landlord of a public house. Ireland, UK
"“Now we have to get out of here before the fuzz start sniffing around. Fingers, get the Rolls resprayed and change the number plates in case they trace it.” “Yes, guv’nor.”"

Synonyms

All synonyms

guv

Example

More examples

"“Now we have to get out of here before the fuzz start sniffing around. Fingers, get the Rolls resprayed and change the number plates in case they trace it.” “Yes, guv’nor.”"

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