ＢＬ

Freq.FrequencyTop 10,000

Meanings

boys' love; BL

abbreviation

Abbreviation of ボーイズラブ (wasei-eigo 'boys love'); refers to a genre of comics, novels, and other media depicting male-male romance, primarily created by and for women.

Usage patterns

〈物もの〉のＢＬを読むのびーえるをよむto read a BL (boys' love) work
彼かの女じょは最さい近きんＢＬを読よむのにハマっている。
She's recently gotten into reading BL comics.
ＢＬを発行するびーえるをはっこうするto issue a bill of lading
輸ゆ出しゅつ会社がいしゃは貨か物もつのＢＬを発はっ行こうした。
The export company issued a bill of lading for the cargo.

Related words

ボーイズラブ sense 1
ボーイズラブ is the full wasei-eigo term for the genre, while ＢＬ is its common abbreviated form used almost everywhere in casual speech and writing.
船ふな荷に証しょう券けん sense 2
船荷証券 is the full Japanese legal term for a bill of lading, while ＢＬ is the abbreviation commonly used in trade and shipping documents.

Opposites

ＧＬ
ＧＬ refers to romantic/sexual fiction between women, while ＢＬ (boys' love) is the corresponding genre depicting romance between men.

Don't confuse with

やおい sense 1
やおい originally referred to amateur, often more explicit fan-created male-male romance stories, whereas ＢＬ now covers the broader, commercially published genre.

Written forms

ＢＬ
- ビーエル
  Standard abbreviation written in fullwidth Latin letters; used for both senses.
- ビー・エル
ビー・エル
- ビーエル
  Explicitly punctuated variant; rarely used in practice.
- ビー・エル

Etymology

Abbreviation. Sense 1 is from wasei-eigo ボーイズラブ (boys love). Sense 2 is from English 'bill of lading'.