girl

noun

young female human

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Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɜːl/ / /ˈɡɛəl/ / /ˈɡɪəl/

name

Etymology: Calque of Mandarin 女宿 (Nǚxiù).

A Chinese constellation located near Aquarius, one of the 28 lunar mansions and part of the Black Turtle.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English gerle, girle, gyrle (“young person (boy or girl)”), perhaps from Old English *gyrele, from Proto-West Germanic *gurilā, from a zero-grade diminutive of *gaurā (“young child”) + *-ilā. Ultimately of unknown origin. Doublet of gal/gyal and gyaru. Cognates Cognate with Yola gurl (“child, girl”), German Gör, Göre (“brat, cheeky young child”), Low German Gör (“child”).

A female child.
“I saw a little girl feeding, brushing, and talking to a heifer.”
A woman, especially a young and often attractive woman.
“He has a crush on a girl at work. We were kidding with him yesterday about his work crush.”
A term of address to a female (see usage notes)
“Hey, girl, I haven't seen you since last week! Where you been?”
“"My dear girl, what has he done?" said Mrs. Mallowe, sweetly. It is noticeable that ladies of a certain age call each other "dear girl," just as commissioners of twenty-eight years' standing address their equals in the Civil List as "my boy."”
One's girlfriend.
“He lucked out with that girl of his. Smart, sweet, sassy, and pretty too.”
“There isn't any guy going to steal my girl!”
One's daughter.
“Your girl turned up on our doorstep. She was crying about the argument on the playground. We let her vent.”
A female friend.
A female non-human animal, especially, in affectionate address, a female pet, especially a dog.
“Hey, Tricksy, come here, girl! Do you want a treat? Yes, you love those biscuits, don't you! What a good girl! Here's another!”
“Sheila – 9yo Blue Cattle Dog x. Lovely girl seeks forever home.”
A female (tree, gene, etc).
“Are you getting a boy cat or a girl cat?”
“Are there “boy” trees and “girl” trees? Yes. A number of species, among them the yew, holly and date-bearing palm, have their male and female flowers on different trees. The male holly, for instance, must be planted fairly close to the female ...”
A machine or vehicle, especially one that the speaker uses often and is fond of.
“The old girl ain't as pretty as she once was, but she still purrs like a kitten and still gets out of her own way!”
“Daly came, delved into the old girl's inner works, and had her working in jig time.”
A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)
“He assumed that the girls should clean up his giant mess. We straightened out his misconception.”
Cocaine, especially in powder form.
“He's the sort of lowlife who snorts coke and refers to it as his girl.”
“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.”
A queen (the playing card).
“Are your sure you want to discard that old girl?”
A roebuck two years old.
A child of any gender.

verb

To feminize or girlify; to gender as a girl or as for girls.
“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.”
“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.”
To staff with or as a girl or girls.
“Making our way past a one-girl switchboard temporarily girled by two frantic operators, we found the victorious president, Elliott A. Bowles, barely visible behind a heap of telegrams [...]”
“Her first shock came when the ship on which she and her husband arrived was met by three boats “girled” by “great, splendid creatures, as tall as our millionaires' tallest daughters, and as strong-looking as any of our college-girl athletes,” ...”