Wide Boy

Wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is synonymous with spiv. The word "wide" is in this sense means wide-awake or sharp-witted. Newspapers of the late 1940s and 1950s often use both terms in the same article about the same person when dealing with ticket touts, fraudsters and black market traders. It has become more generally used to describe a dishonest trader or a petty criminal who works by guile rather than force.

The word came to public attention in 1937 with the publication of Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby, a novel about gamblers and hustlers. During World War II such individuals became involved in the black market, but the term only began to appear in newspapers from 1947.

Read more about Wide Boy:  Fictional Portrayals, Musical References, Other Usage

Famous quotes containing the words wide and/or boy:

    Across Parker Avenue from the fort is the Site of the Old Gallows, where 83 men “stood on nothin’, a-lookin’ up a rope.” The platform had a trap wide enought to “accommodate” 12 men, but half that number was the highest ever reached. On two occasions six miscreants were executed. There were several groups of five, some quartets and trios.
    —Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program. Arkansas: A Guide to the State (The WPA Guide to Arkansas)

    I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.
    Karen Logan (b. 1949)