<P> 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" used 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 . </P> <P> An early use of the term was in the 1933 film "Friday the Thirteenth", where the character played by Max Miller, a loud, quick - witted, Cockney market trader, is heard to say "I'm the widest boy ever put on a pair of shoes!" </P> <P> The term 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 . </P>

Where does the term wide boy come from