Geordie (Newcastle/Northeast England) dialect for a man who works a market stall — a market trader who pushes or tends a barrow (stall).
Geordie (Newcastle/Northeast England) dialect for a man who works a market stall — a market trader who pushes or tends a barrow (stall). In the Northeast's strong outdoor market culture, barra boys were a fixture of city centres and market towns, shouting out their wares with characteristic patter and banter. The term carries warm, working-class associations with street commerce, hustle, and the lively social atmosphere of British markets. It can also be used nostalgically to describe a certain type of straight-talking, entrepreneurial working man.
His dad was a barra boy on the Grainger Market for thirty years, sold everything from veg to watches.
Add your own interpretation of "barra boy".
Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.
Browse all slang words starting with B.
(UK, dated) A boy or man who sells goods, especially fruits or vegetables, from a barrow; a costermonger.
(UK, slang, derogatory, by extension) A financial industry worker from a working class or lower middle class family background.
(slang, British) A man denoted by his taste for loud clothing and flashy cars.
(vulgar, Northern England, slang) Excrement.
(Geordie) A man who works on market stalls.