girl

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
5
Words With Friends
7
Letters
4
Pronunciation
/ˈɡɜːl/
See all 15 pronunciations
/ˈɡɜːl/ · /ˈɡɛəl/ · /ˈɡɪəl/ · /ˈɡɜɹl/ · [ˈɡɝəɫ] · /ˈɡøːl/ · [ˈɡʏw] · /ˈɡɪɾəl/ · [ˈɡɪɾəɫ] · /ɡɜɹl/ · [ɡɚ(ɹ)ɫ] · [ɡəɹ(ə)l] · /ɡeːl/ · /ɡɛːl/ · /ɡɛɹl/

Definition of girl

17 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)A female child.
    “I saw a little girl feeding, brushing, and talking to a heifer.”
See all 17 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)A female child.
    “I saw a little girl feeding, brushing, and talking to a heifer.”
  2. (countable, offensive, sometimes, uncountable)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.”
  3. (colloquial, countable, uncountable)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."”
    “"What a pity you couldn't see it." "Isn't it?" I agreed. "Now do go away, there's a good girl."”
    “'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 a pile of Y-fronts and rugger shorts with his cane.”
  4. (colloquial, countable, uncountable)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!”
    “I took my girl to the cinema to watch your American movies.”
    “Don't look at me, you got a girl at home And everybody knows that, everybody knows that, ah-ah Don't look at me, you got a girl at home And everybody knows that”
  5. (countable, uncountable)One's daughter.
    “Your girl turned up on our doorstep. She was crying about the argument on the playground. We let her vent.”
  6. (countable, especially, uncountable)A female friend.
  7. (countable, uncountable)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.”
  8. (childish, countable, uncountable)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 ...”
    “Of the 100 percent total, 25 will have two girl genes, 50 will have one boy and one girl gene, and 25 will have two boy genes.”
    “When there are two "girl" genes the plant is a girl dwarf.”
  9. (countable, informal, uncountable)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.”
    ““Quiet, everyone!” said Dad as he tried desperately to start the car. GRRR… GRRR… GRRR… Instead of shuddering into life, Queenie let out a low, grinding noise. “Oh no,” said Dad. “What?” asked the boy. “The engine must have flooded when she went upside down. The poor old girl won’t start again now for hours. We’re going to have to walk.””
    “The tired old girl was listing heavily in the heavy seas.”
    “I ran to my car and jumped in. "Come on, girl, start for me, baby!"”
  10. (countable, uncountable)A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)
    “He assumed that the girls should clean up his giant mess. We straightened out his misconception.”
  11. (US, slang, uncountable)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.”
    “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.”
    “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.”
    “Catch me playing with the plate, yeah I love the sauce White girl in my nose, I need to clean it off”
  12. (countable, slang, uncommon, uncountable)A queen (the playing card).
    “Are your sure you want to discard that old girl?”
  13. (UK, countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)A roebuck two years old.
  14. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A child of any gender.

verb

  1. (transitive)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.”
  2. (informal)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,” ...”
    “She and her Altrurian diplomat husband, arriving there by sea, are greeted by flower-laden boats, each not manned, but girled by six rowers, who pulled as true a stroke as I ever saw.”
    “To her disappointment, the chatty Carlene DuBois wasn't behind the desk; instead it was manned—or girled—by a frothy little blonde who barely looked old enough to be out of high school.”

name

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

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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”).

Anagrams of girl

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