girl

• gal (colloquial)
• guhrl (nonstandard)
• gurl (nonstandard)
• grrrl, grrl (slang)
• girle, gyrle (obsolete)

A group of girls in Sri Lanka.

From Middle English gerle, girle, gyrle (“young person of either sex”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Old English *gyrle, *gyrele, from Proto-Germanic *gurwilaz, 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”)).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɜːl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɝl/
• (UK, obsolete) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɛəl/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɵːl/, [ˈɡʏw]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)l
• Homophone: Guirl

girl (plural girls)

1. A female child, adolescent, or young woman.
   • 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.

   • 1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 3, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 27:

     The woman opposite him was a mere girl - twenty at a guess.

   • 2006, Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim

     Scott: Hey, it's our 8-month anniversary.

     Envy: Really? I can't even believe you remember that stuff!

     Scott: Whoa, wait a second... Am I the girl in this relationship?

     Envy: You totally are!

   • 2006, Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim

     Todd: Envy.. You're my girl.

     Envy: Oh, Todd... Let's both be girls!! [Envy kicks Todd on the crotch]

   • 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.

2. A young female animal.
3. Any woman, regardless of her age. (see usage notes)
4. A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)
5. (uncommon, card games) A queen (the playing card.)
6. (colloquial) A term of endearment. (see usage notes)
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, pp. 8–9:

     'Now, girls,' continued Healey, 'you're very high-spirited and that's as it should be but I won't have you getting out of hand...' Setting a spatted foot on the bench that ran down the middle of the changing-room with elegant distain, Adrian began to flip through the pile of Y-fronts and rugger shorts with his cane.

7. One's 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.

8. One's daughter.

   Your girl turned up on our doorstep.

9. (Britain, dialectal, obsolete) A roebuck two years old.
10. (US, slang) Cocaine, especially in powder form.
    • 1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Cash Money Content (2011), →ISBN, 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, 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, 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.

• (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).
• (term of endearment): When used as a term of endearment, it can be used for someone female or, in some contexts, for someone male, such as the use within the gay community.

• (young female human): see also Thesaurus:girl.
• (cocaine): see also Thesaurus:cocaine.

Pages starting with "girl".

girl (third-person singular simple present girls, present participle girling, simple past and past participle girled)

1. (transitive) To feminize or girlify.
   • 2005, Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity (page 293)

     Quite different is the way in which the tomboy girled the rebel narrative. In recent years, queer theorists have taken a deep interest in the tomboy as a prefigure for the butch dyke.

   • 2011, Stephanie Harzewski, Chick Lit and Postfeminism

     One can argue that the genre “yuppified” the popular romance novel or perhaps “girled” the not especially gender-specific concept of the young urban professional.

• miss

• LIRG, gril