Girl

A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When she becomes an adult, she is described as a woman. The term girl may also be used to mean a young woman, and is sometimes used as a synonym for daughter. Girl may also be a term of endearment used by an adult, usually a woman, to designate adult female friends. The treatment and status of girls in any society is usually closely related to the status of women in that culture. In cultures where women have a low societal position, girls may be unwanted by their parents, and the state may invest less in services for girls. Girls' upbringing ranges from being relatively the same as that of boys to complete sex segregation and completely different gender roles. The English word girl first appeared during the Middle Ages between 1250 and 1300 CE and came from the Anglo-Saxon word gerle (also spelled girle or gurle). The Anglo-Saxon word gerela meaning dress or clothing item also seems to have been used as a metonym in some sense. Until the late 1400s, the word meant a child of either sex. Girl has meant any young unmarried woman since about 1530. Its first noted meaning for sweetheart is 1648. The earliest known appearance of girl-friend is in 1892 and girl next door, meant as a teenaged female or young woman with a kind of wholesome appeal, dates only to 1961. The word girl is sometimes used to refer to an adult female, usually a younger one. This usage may be considered derogatory or disrespectful in professional or other formal contexts, just as the term boy can be considered disparaging when applied to an adult man. Hence, this usage is often deprecative. It can also be used deprecatively when used to discriminate against children ('you're just a girl'). However, girl can also be a professional designation for a woman employed as a model or other public feminine representative such as a showgirl, and in such cases is not generally considered derogatory. In casual context, the word has positive uses, as evidenced by its use in titles of popular music. It has been used playfully for people acting in an energetic fashion (Canadian singer Nelly Furtado's 'Promiscuous Girl') or as a way of unifying women of all ages on the basis of their once having been girls (American country singer Martina McBride's 'This One's for the Girls'). These positive uses mean gender rather than age.