girl.
A female child.
Meaning & usage
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?
One's girlfriend.
He lucked out with that girl of his. Smart, sweet, sassy, and pretty too.
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!
A female (tree, gene, etc).
Are you getting a boy cat or a girl cat?
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!
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.
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.
Where this word comes from
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”).
To feminize or girlify; to gender as a girl or as for girls.
To staff with or as a girl or girls.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Try it on your idea.
girl has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.