altar boy vs acolyte

altar boy and acolyte both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
altar boy	Yes	No	No	No
acolyte	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, acolyte is a hypernym of altar boy; that is, acolyte is a word with a broader meaning than altar boy:

altar boy: a boy serving as an acolyte
acolyte: someone who assists a priest or minister in a liturgical service; a cleric ordained in the highest of the minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church but not in the Anglican Church or the Eastern Orthodox Churches

Other hypernyms of altar boy include boy, male child.

altar boy (noun)	acolyte (noun)
a boy serving as an acolyte	someone who assists a priest or minister in a liturgical service; a cleric ordained in the highest of the minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church but not in the Anglican Church or the Eastern Orthodox Churches