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Girls

 - 4 dictionary results

girl

  [gurl]
Use Girls in a Sentence
–noun
1. a female child, from birth to full growth.
2. a young, immature woman, esp. formerly, an unmarried one.
3. a daughter: My wife and I have two girls.
4. Informal: Sometimes Offensive. a grown woman, esp. when referred to familiarly: She's having the girls over for bridge next week.
5. girlfriend; sweetheart.
6. Often Offensive. a female servant.
7. Usually Offensive. a female employee.
8. a female who is from or native to a given place: She's a Missouri girl.
9. girls, (used with a singular or plural verb)
a. a range of sizes from 7 to 14, for garments made for girls.
b. a garment in this size range.
c. the department or section of a store where these garments are sold.
Origin:
1250–1300; ME gurle, girle, gerle child, young person; cf. OE gyrela, gi(e)rela, item of dress, apparel (presumably worn by the young in late OE period, and hence used as a metonym)

Usage note:
Just as many mature men, even young men, resent being referred to as boys, many adult women today are offended if referred to as girls, or the less formal gals. In business and professional offices, the practice of referring to one's secretary as the girl or my girl, as in I'll have my girl look it up and call you back, has decreased but not disappeared entirely. Such terms as the girls in reference to a group of women, girl or gal Friday in reference to a female secretary or assistant, and bachelor girl in reference to an unmarried woman are increasingly regarded as offensive, and working girl in the sense “a woman who works” is declining in use. See also lady, woman.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Girls
girl   (gûrl)   
n.  

  1. A female child.

  2. A daughter: our youngest girl.

  3. Often Offensive A woman, especially a young woman.

  4. Informal

    1. A woman socializing in a group of women: a night out with the girls.

    2. Used as a familiar form of address to express support of or camaraderie with a woman.

  5. Informal A female sweetheart: cadets escorting their girls to the ball.

  6. Offensive A female servant or employee.


[Middle English girle, child, girl.]
girl'hood' n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
girl

  1. n.
    a woman; a young woman. (Objectionable to some as demeaning to women.) : A bunch of us girls got together for coffee today.
  2. n.
    the queen of playing cards. (See also bitch.) : What I needed in that last hand was the girl.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

girl 
c.1290, gyrle "child" (of either sex), of unknown origin; current scholarship leans toward an unrecorded O.E. *gyrele, from P.Gmc. *gurwilon-, dim. of *gurwjoz (represented by Low Ger. gære "boy, girl"), from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Gk. parthenos "virgin." But this is highly conjectural. Another candidate is O.E. gierela "garment." Like boy, lass, lad it is of obscure origin. "Probably most of them arose as jocular transferred uses of words that had originally different meaning" [OED]. Specific meaning of "female child" is 14c. Applied to "any young unmarried woman" since 1530. Meaning "sweetheart" is from 1648; girl-friend is attested from 1892. Girlie (adj.) "meant to titillate men" is from 1942. Girl next door as a type of unflashy attractiveness is first recorded 1961.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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