Himbo

A gorgeous, muscular man with not much upstairs: the male bimbo, these days usually sweet, kind and happily simple.

A himbo is a gorgeous, muscular man with not much going on upstairs: the male version of a bimbo. The classic himbo is sweet, good-natured, a bit lost in any conversation that does not involve protein, and completely unbothered by it. He is not mean and not stupid in a nasty way. He just lives in his body, and his body is doing great.

That is the modern twist. When the word was young it was mostly an insult or a joke about vain, empty pretty boys. Today it is almost affectionate: the internet's favorite himbo is kind, loyal and respectful, the opposite of the arrogant bro, and lots of us would happily date one.

Where it comes from

Himbo is a blend of him and bimbo. Merriam-Webster's first known use is from 1988, in the film critic Rita Kempley's report from the Cannes festival for The Washington Post, and the dictionary dates it to that year. The coinage made sense: bimbo had once been used for men too, but by the late 1980s it meant a woman, so the boys needed their own word. A British paper in 1999 called it "a late-Eighties coining, to pun on bimbo".

Through the 1990s it was a gossip-column word for models, actors and the young boyfriends of rich older women, and Green's Dictionary of Slang even records it in the sense of a gigolo. That is the side that touches our own scene: the kept boy of a sugar daddy is often cast as a himbo, fairly or not.

How it is used today

In the late 2010s the himbo had a comeback online, with fans praising cartoon and TV characters for being hot, dim and kind all at once, and by 2021 Jezebel was running a whole Himbos Week that cast him as a good-hearted antidote to toxic masculinity. Gay men took to it fast, partly because it fits a type we already had words for. A himbo is a hunk with the volume turned down, a gym bunny with no ambitions beyond the next set, a jock who never got the scholarship.

It can still sting. Call a man a himbo to his face and he may hear "pretty but thick". Among friends, though, it is a love word, and some men put it in their own bios as a warning and a promise: no deep talks, excellent arms.

Himbo or hunk

A hunk is only about looks; the word does not care whether he reads. A himbo is a hunk plus a personality, and the personality is golden retriever: friendly, simple, eager to help. If you are not sure, ask him what he is reading. A hunk might answer. A himbo will show you his new gym shorts.

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