girl
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Girl
Contents
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English girle, gerle, gyrle (“young person of either sex”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Old English *gyrle, *gyrele, a diminutive form of Proto-Germanic *gurwijaz (compare North Frisian gör (“girl”), Low German Gör, Göre (“child of either sex”), German Göre (“young child”), dialectal Norwegian gorre, dialectal Swedish garre, gurre (“small child”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“short”)[1] (compare Old Irish gair (“short”), Ancient Greek χρεώ (khreṓ, “need, necessity”), χρήσθαι (khrḗsthai, “to need”), Sanskrit ह्रस्व (hrasva, “short, small”)).
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
girl (plural girls)
- A young female human; specifically (in contrast to boy), a female child, teenager, or young adult; by extension, a young female animal
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1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
- No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.
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2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:
- One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.
- Amanda is a girl of 16.
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- Any woman, regardless of her age. (see usage notes)
- A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)
- (uncommon) A queen (the playing card.)
- (colloquial) A term of endearment. (see usage notes)
- A girlfriend.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Girl from Hollywood
- There isn't any guy going to steal my girl!
- 1996, Elizabeth Wong, Kimchee and Chitlins: A Serious Comedy about Getting Along (page 74)
- I took my girl to the cinema to watch your American movies.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Girl from Hollywood
- A daughter.
- Your girl turned up on our doorstep.
- (Britain, dialect, obsolete) A roebuck two years old.
- (US, slang) Cocaine, especially in powder form.
- 1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Cash Money Content (2011), ISBN 9781451617139, page 43:
- She had taught me to snort girl, and almost always when I came to her pad, there would be thin sparkling rows of crystal cocaine on the glass top of the cocktail table.
- 1977, Odie Hawkins, Chicago Hustle, Holloway House (1987), ISBN 0870673661, page 175:
- Elijah nodded congenially to the early evening regulars in the Afro Lounge, headed straight for the telephone hung midway between the mens and womens, his nose smarting from a couple thick lines of recently snorted girl.
- 2005, K'wan, Hoodlum, St. Martin's Press (2005), ISBN 0312333080, page 185:
- After about an hour or two of half-ass sex and snorting girl, Honey was zoned out. […] She flexed her still numb fingers, trying to find a warmth that didn't seem to come. Cocaine always made her numb.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:girl.
- 1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Cash Money Content (2011), ISBN 9781451617139, page 43:
Usage notes[edit]
- (any woman, regardless of her age): Calling a grown woman a "girl" may be considered either a compliment or an insult, depending on context and sensibilities. In some cases, the term is used as a euphemism for virgin, to distinguish a female who has never engaged in sexual intercourse (a "girl") from one who has done so (and is a woman).
Synonyms[edit]
- (young female human): see also Wikisaurus:girl.
- (cocaine): see also Wikisaurus:cocaine.
Derived terms[edit]
Derived terms
Look at pages starting with girl.
Translations[edit]
young female person
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woman
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female servant
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
References[edit]
- ^ Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, s.v. "girl" (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).
See also[edit]
Statistics[edit]
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English rare forms
- English colloquialisms
- British English
- English dialectal terms
- English terms with obsolete senses
- American English
- English slang
- en:Children
- en:Female
