girlgirl /ɡɜːl $ ɡɜːrl/ ●●● S1 W1 noun [countable] 
Both boys and girls can apply to join the choir.little/small/young girl I’ve known Mollie ever since I was a little girl.five-year-old girl/girl of ten etc The patient was a girl of 12. Girls! Please be quiet. a teenage girl► see thesaurus at woman2daughter a daughter: They have two girls and a boy.somebody’s little girl How old’s your little girl (=someone’s young daughter) now? Time for bed, girls!3woman a word meaning a woman, especially a young woman, which is considered offensive by some women: I’ll invite some of the girls from the office. Steve’s married to a lovely Dutch girl.4the girls informal a group of women who are friends and often go out together: I’m going out with the girls tonight.5animal used when speaking to a female animal, especially a dog, cat, or horse: Bring me the stick. Good girl!6girl American English spoken informal used by a woman when she is speaking to another woman she knows well: Hey, girl. What’s up?7 (you) go, girl! American English spoken informal used to encourage a girl or woman, or to say that you agree with what she is saying8girlfriend old-fashioned a word for a woman who you are having a romantic relationship with SYN girlfriend9my girl old-fashioned used by an older person when speaking to a girl or woman who is younger than they are, or when they are annoyed: Listen to me, my girl!10factory girl/shop girl/office girl old-fashioned a young woman who works in a factory, shop, office etc11servant old-fashioned a woman servant → old girl
WORD ORIGINgirl
Origin:
1500-1600 gurle, girle ‘child, young person’ (13-15 centuries), of unknown originEXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- A little girl was sitting on the front doorstep.
- A nice girl like you needs a husband.
- Beth is one of the most popular girls in her class.
- He's going out with that girl who works in the library.
- I'll have my girl send it over.
- In Britain, some young girls are choosing parenthood as an alternative to employment.
- More girls play sports now than when I was younger.
- On Saturday night, the streets are full of teenage girls and boys, out for a good time.
- She's my girl.
- She's tall for a girl her age.
- What's that girl's name?
- Another girl followed her, bearing a tray of coffee.
- As for that girl, words failed her.
- Give each of these girls a doll and put it on the bill.
- He saw girls at his Theatrical Club.
- She even managed to array the girl in shining armor.
- The vision of the vain, silly girl she had been seemed to accuse her in some obscure way.
THESAURUS
a female adult person: · a young woman with dark brown hair
a polite word for a woman – used especially when you do not know the woman, or when the person you are talking to does not know the woman: · A glass of white wine please, for this lady here.· The young lady stood up and shook my hand.
a young female person – usually used about someone younger than about twenty: · a very pretty girl· teenage girls
formal a woman – used especially when you are giving information about women, for example in formal surveys and reports: · Females account for 46% of Internet users.
Longman Language Activatora child a young person from the time they are born until they are aged about 14 or 15: · How many children are there in your class?· Children under 14 travel free.· Every child was given a present.as a child: · As a child, she preferred playing football with the boys to playing with dolls.child prodigy (=a child who is extremely good at doing something, for example playing music or speaking languages, from a very young age ): · While growing up in North Carolina, Amos was considered a child prodigy on the piano.child development (=the way a child grows and learns new skills): · After her first baby was born, Barb read child development books constantly.child care (=when someone looks after children while their parents work): · The state will provide child care when both parents participate in the training program.child abuse (=cruel or violent treatment of children by adults): · Nationwide, only one in four cases of child abuse and neglect is reported.
informal a child: · Jamie's a bright kid.· I really enjoy working with kids.· When we were kids, we used to spend practically the whole summer outdoors.just a kid: · Don't be so hard on him - he's just a kid.
a male child: · I used to live in Spain when I was a boy.· Harry teaches in a boys' school in Glasgow.· He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and walked with him down the hall.little boy (=a very young boy): · Why don't you go play with that little boy over there?
a female child: · What's that girl's name?· More girls play sports now than when I was younger.· Beth is one of the most popular girls in her class.little girl (=a very young girl): · A little girl was sitting on the front doorstep.
a very young child who has just learned to walk: · As a toddler, he was attacked and injured by the family's pet dog.· A toddler was squatting in the middle of the carpet, thumb in mouth.
someone who is liked more than other people British /favorite American someone who is liked better, especially by someone in authority, than the others in a group, and who is often treated better: · Admit it, you were always Mom's favourite.· Of all my customers, Sherman was easily my favorite.
informal someone who is their teacher's favourite student, and who the other students do not like because of this: · By his own account, Huggins was a teacher's pet whose life revolved around his schoolwork.
British informal someone who is treated better than anyone else by their teacher, employer, parent etc, because they think he is perfect and do not notice his faults: · Tom Cruise is Hollywood's blue-eyed boy at the moment.
written the person who a group of people like most, for example a political party or people who write for a particular newspaper: · For some strange reason Livingstone became the darling of the right-wing press.
a group of friends also circle the people you know, especially a group of friends who all know each other and often meet socially: · He had a large circle of friends.· Since my children have started school, my circle has widened to include the mothers of other kids.
spoken a group of male or female friends who often do things together: · Sally's having a night out with the girls from the office.· It's his poker night with the boys.
informal a small group of friends who often meet socially: · I usually go out with the gang on Saturday nights.one of the gang (=accepted into the group of friends): · She's not really one of the gang, but I invited her to the party.
informal a group of friends who often do things or go out together: · He wasn't with his usual crowd last night.· It may be necessary to change your child's school if they get in with a bad crowd.
: the tennis/golf club/arty etc set a group of friends who meet socially, especially because they are all interested in the same sport or activity, especially an expensive one: · She likes to mingle with the arty set.
a group of people who know each other, and will help each other, even if this means being slightly dishonest: · Weiss was careful not to upset his political cronies.· Her father is probably in the bar, drinking with his cronies.
a woman a female adult: · Rebecca Stephens was the first British woman to climb Mount Everest.· Who's that woman you were talking to just now?· In some African countries, the women do most of the agricultural work.
a polite word for a woman, especially a woman who is there when you are speaking about her: · There's a lady here who wants to speak to you about her account.old lady: · Ella is the elderly lady who lives next door.ladies and gentlemen (=use this when you are talking to an audience, making a speech etc): · Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you here tonight.
a young woman: · He's going out with that girl who works in the library.· On Saturday night, the streets are full of teenage girls and boys, out for a good time.young girl: · In Britain, some young girls are choosing parenthood as an alternative to employment.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY Both boys and girls can apply to join the choir. I’ve known Mollie ever since I was a little girl. The patient was a girl of 12.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES Bad cat! Get off the table! two little boys playing in the street What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? a poor little orphan girlCOLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADJECTIVE
Both boys and girls can apply to join the choir. I’ve known Mollie ever since I was a little girl. The patient was a girl of 12.· She’s just had a lovely healthy baby girl.
Bad cat! Get off the table! informal (=the person whose birthday it is)· Here comes the birthday girl!
(=an attractive girl whose photo is on the front cover)· She had always liked the idea of being a cover girl.
two little boys playing in the street (=someone’s son or daughter who is still a child) Mum, I’m 17 – I’m not your little girl any longer.
Mum, I’m 17 – I’m not your little girl any longer.· Your son’s a lucky man, having a father like you.
British English (=the newest person in a job, organization etc – used humorously)
What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? a poor little orphan girl· There were girls who persistently stayed out late, girls who kept bad company and girls who drank too much.· Jen had been a bad girl as a kid and probably seemed to him to be straightening out.· They were all thieves and bad girls.· I love that she is the bad girl.· Nice girls saved everything until they were married and bad girls, well, bad girls did the opposite.· Squashing a bad girl is like trying to squash a bluebottle.· Of course he wasn't interested in what was good or bad for the girls.
· I want to know all there is to know about an astonishingly beautiful girl called Ellie.· From a variety of angles, the movie makes its point about beautiful girls, without ever hitting us over the head.· Yet she was not a conventionally beautiful girl.· What they usually hoard and guard in this way are beautiful girls and treasures of gold.· A very beautiful girl, an honest, country girl.· After three sons, Thomas and Kim Cipriano were thrilled to have a beautiful baby girl.· Come to me, My beautiful girl.· This beautiful and innocent girl on the other side of the world insisted that I call her Sally.
· They're all chasing the good looking girls.· His bad boy always drove me to my vivacious good girl.· It won't mind. Good girl!· You married like a good girl.· You be a good girl too and go straight to sleep.· A good girl, was Jessica.· Don't misunderstand me ... she's a good girl and generous-hearted once you get to know her.· Was it a disastrous marriage or the betrayal of a good girl?
· One little girl dropped her ice-cream in the excitement of it all and began to howl like a banshee.· The little girl never left my mind.· He's got two little girls with him - one is his daughter.· All kinds of pretty little girls were cutting down the darkening street.· I like living with my mum and her little girl.· It does so with the explicit mission of setting an example for little girls who enjoy sports.· I didn't really want to be a pretty little girl then.· Another had played checkers with a little girl named Hattie Wise, and persuaded her older brother to join the order.
· Alison had shown enough respectable horror on discovering that he was married to prove she was a nice girl.· He needed some nice girl of Anthony's age to prove his point.· And she was a nice girl.· Some nice girls do, some nice girls don't.· We were afraid that Fifi was caving in to family pressure and regressing into some nice third-world girl.· Some nice girls do, some nice girls don't.· Not cocky young men with roving eyes and a nice taste in girls.
· They've re-opened an incident room they set up in November when a fourteen year old girl was raped.· A six-year-old Ohio girl dies from an airbag deployment. 1994· Read in studio Two twelve year old girls have been sexually assaulted by a masked man in Milton Keynes.· His questionable relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl had been found out.· They were bought by an enthusiastic sixteen year old girl who wants to drive them when they are old enough.· Another couple had selected an eight-year-old girl and were leading her away.· It happened less than two days after a fourteen year old girl from Birmingham was killed in a joyriding incident.· Even Beate postponed going out to join the group of older girls in the camp.
· The other girl was not so lucky, her attempted escape accelerated the plans for her marriage.· Perhaps the other girl didn't mind being part of a deal over a vineyard.· He had danced with some of the other girls but not with her.· Some one's talking to the other girls.· Had her shyly determined efforts to be friendly with the other quieter girls like herself been so thoroughly misinterpreted?· By now most of the other girls found me extremely odd, but they were easily cowed by my outbursts of sarcasm.
· She was bored, poor girl.· Terrified by the suffering of the poor girl, at the end of his patience and afraid, he abandons her.· She went out of her mind, poor girl.· The girls in Entally were poor girls.· The poor girl was absolutely infatuated with him, not knowing that his tastes lie in quite a different direction.· I have something here that might help you find the man who attacked the poor girl.
· He'd fallen in love with a pretty girl who had nice ways and was sweet to kiss and cuddle.· She's that pretty girl, isn't she.· She is a pretty girl, but I did not know how to kiss her.· There was the pretty girl from the village shop wearing an emerald-green dress more suited to a wedding.· Or, if you will marry pretty girls.· One day Howard came on the set and Brando was down the beach talking to a pretty girl.· Looking at herself in the mirror, she was surprised to find a pretty girl looking back at her.
· Once the first week was over the two small girls joined others in the schoolroom.· I have no intention of exposing the flesh of a small girl whom I did not once see stripped of her clothing.· There was a thin silver ring of the type small girls wear on the fourth finger.· At a nearby Safeway pharmacy an incorrect antibiotic was dispensed for a small girl.· Infantilized, she used to appear regularly in hagiographical volumes, especially those designed for the edification of small girls.· The lady with the ballet tees was now joined by an older lady with a small girl by the hand.· After this last furlough we paid a last sad visit to the school and found a small girl crying her heart out.· The title refers to the room in which the state caretakers abandoned a small girl to her death.
· The reasons why teenage girls get pregnant are many and various.· Many teenage girls worry that if they appear too smart or competent, boys will be turned off.· Among teenage girls in Middlesbrough and Langbaurgh there were 12 abortions and 28 births in 1990 for every 1,000 teenagers.· They were two teenage girls who had spent months in the same hospital but had never seen each other.· Girl, 16, raped by gang A TEENAGE girl was kidnapped and raped by a gang while police hunted for her.· Two teenage girls and a woman were hurt.· Recently, my wife was on a local bus with a lot of teenage girls coming home from school.
· The youngest girl, only two, had her portrait painted by him.· I took the younger girls and a young boy, and we stayed down there to see what was going to happen.· Certainly he had not been in such close proximity to a pretty young girl for as long as he could remember.· The opera over, great crowds of young girls came piling into our place.· It was highly reprehensible for a young girl who had not been properly initiated into the status of motherhood to become pregnant.· Inside, his parents mourned for both their son and the seven young girls he killed.· Quite a lot of young girls, however, choose not to sue for child maintenance.· Older women, young girls, and men of all ages gain fat on their torsos and limbs much more evenly.
NOUN· A baby girl died in Norfolk after choking on a penny.· By that time, McCorvey had given birth and put the baby girl up for adoption.· A baby girl emerges into the world with the pattern for her future possible children already laid within her body.· I was pregnant with Denver but I had milk for my baby girl.· Human baby girls are born with about three million eggs in their ovaries, and that is their lifetime's supply.· All I knew was I had to get my milk to my baby girl.· The firemen quickly extinguished the blaze and the body of the baby girl was discovered in the bedroom.· When doctors told me that I was carrying a baby girl, I wept.
VERB· If you will have it, yes, there were debts that did not permit of my marrying a penniless girl.· You married like a good girl.· By the time he was twenty Rasputin had married a local girl and before long had sired four children.· Still, she said, she would be nervous if her son decided to marry a Druitt girl.· Harry later -; not so much later - sought to marry an island girl, and settled down.· He had been rewarded for marrying a girl nobody in his right mind would have married.· He had married a Glasgow girl, probably in 1934, and the marriage broke up in 1939.· He could not marry a girl of his own age and class, because her father would reject him.
· I haven't got time to meet girls.· Ed had met a girl called Galatea who was living in San Francisco on her savings.· A young man there called Motor Martinez could meet the young girl called Bujia Martinez.· Then I dressed and off we flew to New York to meet some girls.· One time, I meet a girl whose name I don't remember.· I've met a lot of girls in Aspen.
PHRASES FROM THE ENTRY► (you) go, girl!► factory girl/shop girl/office girlPHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES► a big girl’s blouse► a slip of a girl/boy etc► that’s a good girl/that’s a clever dog etc► it’s a girl/football/music etc thing
1child a female child: - But the little game's over, my girl.
- Don't you take him home, my girl.
- It's not what you think, my girl, it's what the man thinks.
- Not really your fault, my girl.
- That's put you in your place, my girl.
- This won't do, my girl.
- I'm going out with the girls tonight.
- A lot of the girls do that when they walk out.
- All the girls kept photographs of their parents perched prominently on the lockers by their beds.
- As the girls had grown older things had not improved.
- But Bill annoyed Gabby even more than the girls when he made another crack at her when they broke for lunch.
- He often invited the girls back to his house, but most of them came only once.
- Many of the girls haven't played for a while.
- Miss Poole had no friends and seldom had visitors, except for the girls who came over occasionally for high tea.
- She hated the girls, feared Miss Poole and was uncertain about her teaching.
- Come on girls!
- Sadly, morals and behaviour ashore had deteriorated too with more drunks and ladies of easy virtue in evidence.
- There are of course differences between the 1930s and late twentieth-century interpretations of the glamour girl.
- She's Hollywood's current golden girl.
- Completing the trio of golden girls is Millicent Martin - it's a formidable combination.
- Even without mistakes, the halo effect eventually wears off when some one else emerges as the new golden girl.
- First full season for Formula One's new golden boy.
- From the very beginning, Tordella was the golden boy of the Puzzle Palace.
- Ratner is not a fallen golden boy of the Thatcher era, nor a victim of his own jokes.
- So golden boy had flipped - this week?
- Terms such as thought leader, golden boy, or winner refer to people with a power base of reputation.
- They are golden boys, about 17 or 18, and apparently weightless.
- Good boys, good boys, good boys.
- He's a good boy, and he's very strong.
- He coughed, told Oliver to dry his eyes and be a good boy, and walked on with him in silence.
- He had been a very good boy indeed.
- I am Pa's best boy.
- I tried to be a good girl and stay out of the way.
- Randolph worked his hardest, pulling away, while Santa delivered all the presents to the good boys and girls.
- This was where good boys came after they got killed by Rupert.
- He was a tough little kid, Esteban, the women in his life say.
- Michael: Who are the men in your life?
- My doctor is the man in my life.
- Nevertheless, he felt abandoned and betrayed by the women in his life.
- Recent books have revealed the unacknowledged literary debts that writers such as Brecht and Joyce owed to the women in their lives.
- To clarify things that may be confusing the men in their lives.
- Was that why she found the men in her life all so boring?
- Why was it that the men in her life seemed to have found some other woman to give them an heir?
Both boys and girls can apply to join the choir.little/small/young girl I’ve known Mollie ever since I was a little girl.five-year-old girl/girl of ten etc The patient was a girl of 12. Girls! Please be quiet. a teenage girl► see thesaurus at woman2daughter a daughter: They have two girls and a boy.somebody’s little girl How old’s your little girl (=someone’s young daughter) now? Time for bed, girls!3woman a word meaning a woman, especially a young woman, which is considered offensive by some women: I’ll invite some of the girls from the office. Steve’s married to a lovely Dutch girl.4the girls informal a group of women who are friends and often go out together: I’m going out with the girls tonight.5animal used when speaking to a female animal, especially a dog, cat, or horse: Bring me the stick. Good girl!6girl American English spoken informal used by a woman when she is speaking to another woman she knows well: Hey, girl. What’s up?7 (you) go, girl! American English spoken informal used to encourage a girl or woman, or to say that you agree with what she is saying8girlfriend old-fashioned a word for a woman who you are having a romantic relationship with SYN girlfriend9my girl old-fashioned used by an older person when speaking to a girl or woman who is younger than they are, or when they are annoyed: Listen to me, my girl!10factory girl/shop girl/office girl old-fashioned a young woman who works in a factory, shop, office etc11servant old-fashioned a woman servant → old girl