girl

• n. 女孩；姑娘，未婚女子；女职员，女演员；（男人的）女朋友
• n. （捷）吉尔

词态变化

中文词源

词源不详。

英文词源

girl

girl: [13] Where girl comes from is one of the unsolved puzzles of English etymology. What is at least clear is that originally it meant ‘child’ in general rather than specifically ‘female child’ (a mid 15th-century text refers to knave-gerlys ‘male children’), but where it came from is not known. Among suggestions for words that may be connected are Low German göre ‘child, kid’ and Norwegian dialect gurre ‘lamb’.

girl (n.)

c. 1300, gyrle "child, young person" (of either sex but most frequently of females), of unknown origin. One guess [OED] leans toward an unrecorded Old English *gyrele, from Proto-Germanic *gurwilon-, diminutive of *gurwjoz (apparently also represented by Low German gære "boy, girl," Norwegian dialectal gorre, Swedish dialectal gurre "small child," though the exact relationship, if any, between all these is obscure), from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Greek parthenos "virgin." But this involves some objectionable philology. Liberman (2008) writes:

Girl does not go back to any Old English or Old Germanic form. It is part of a large group of Germanic words whose root begins with a g or k and ends in r. The final consonant in girl is a diminutive suffix. The g-r words denote young animals, children, and all kinds of creatures considered immature, worthless, or past their prime.

Another candidate is Old English gierela "garment" (for possible sense evolution in this theory, compare brat). A former folk-etymology derivation from Latin garrulus "chattering, talkative" is now discarded. Like boy, lass, lad it is of more or less obscure origin. "Probably most of them arose as jocular transferred uses of words that had originally different meaning" [OED]. Specific meaning of "female child" is late 14c. Applied to "any young unmarried woman" since mid-15c. Meaning "sweetheart" is from 1640s. Old girl in reference to a woman of any age is recorded from 1826. Girl next door as a type of unflashy attractiveness is recorded by 1953.

Doris [Day] was a big vocalist even before she hit the movies in 1948. There, as the latest movie colony "girl next door," sunny-faced Doris soon became a leading movie attraction as well as the world's top female recording star. "She's the girl next door, all right," said one Hollywood admirer. "Next door to the bank." ["Life" magazine, Dec. 22, 1958]

Girl Friday "resourceful young woman assistant" is from 1940, a reference to "Robinson Crusoe." Girl Scout is from 1909. For the usual Old English word, see maiden.

双语例句

1. The word " girl " is derived from Middle English " girle ".

“ girl ” 这个词是由中世纪英文中的 “ girle ” 来的.

来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2. She was a shy, delicately pretty girl with enormous blue eyes.

她是一个害羞、娇美的女孩，长着一双大大的蓝眼睛。

来自柯林斯例句

3. Derek is now the proud father of a bouncing baby girl.

德里克现在为有一个健康活泼的女宝宝而骄傲。

来自柯林斯例句

4. They saw the man with a little girl skipping along behind him.

他们看见那个男人身后还跟着一个蹦蹦跳跳的小姑娘。

来自柯林斯例句

5. Anyone would think you were in love with the girl.

谁都会以为你和那个姑娘恋爱了。

来自柯林斯例句