Once an all-round label for children, girl has spent centuries shedding neutrality and accumulating meaning. As a result, behind its apparent simplicity lies a layered history—one that speaks to age, gender, class, and the shifting boundaries of identity. In this entry, we trace how girl evolved from an everyday word to a cultural cipher.
girl
Etymological Drift
Middle English (c. 1300): girle/gurle—a young person, typically a child of low status, regardless of gender
Later Middle English: girl—began narrowing to mean a female child and young woman, later also used as "sweetheart" (a girlfriend or wife)
Early Modern English: a female child, a young woman, a working-class female employee, and occasionally a euphemism for women in the sex trade
Modern English: a young female person; sometimes extends to adult women in informal or colloquial contexts
The semantic path:
child → female child → young female person → symbol of femininity
Emotional Subtext
Originally, girl wasn’t a gendered term at all. It referred broadly to children, used in contrast to adults. As language evolved, the word narrowed to signify a female child, while boy—class-coded before it was gendered—emerged as its male counterpart.
The shift was both linguistic and cultural. As Western societies stratified, especially during the early modern period, femininity began to be codified through language. Girl became a container for innocence, vulnerability, and even frivolity.
Over time, the word absorbed infantilisation ("just a girl"). In some historical contexts, girl could also carry connotations of flirtation, entertainment, or eroticised labour—especially in urban or theatrical settings ("showgirl," "girl of ease"). Its departure from gender neutrality marks a cultural loss worth noticing.
Today, the term girl also dances between rebellion and reappropriation. Let’s consider how it's often used both playfully and powerfully: "girlboss," "girls’ night," "that girl," "it girl." A once genderless word now holds layers of identity, claimed and critiqued in equal measure, but never neutral.
This evolution reflects broader changes in how language tracks age, gender, and familiarity. So, while girl is firmly gendered today, its history reveals a time when childhood wasn’t quite as linguistically divided.
Residual Meaning Rating
★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
The original neutrality is largely lost, but some informal uses still contain traces of the word's earlier openness to age and identity.
Cultural Notes
Gendering of childhood: By the late 1500s and into the 1600s, boy emerged as a counterpart to girl, with both words settling into the gendered roles we recognise today
Literary history: In Middle English, authors like Chaucer used girl flexibly, often as a gender-neutral term for children
By Shakespeare’s time, girl was increasingly gendered female, reflecting evolving social distinctions and linguistic norms
Middle English usage: Some texts used terms like "knave girl" (corresponding to today's boy) and "gay girl" (closer to today's girl) to distinguish between male and female children
Still, this usage was neither widespread nor consistent
Contemporary nuance: The word is often context-sensitive—affectionate in some cases, too casual or condescending in others
Subtextual Question
What do we assume when we say girl?
Elsewhere in the Drift
Silly: Etymology Through Lost Innocence
Words offer much more than meaning—they hold histories, emotions, and echoes of the societies that shaped them. Silly is one such word, tracing a remarkable path from blessing to gentle mockery.
Sources
Curzan, Anne. Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge University Press. 2003.
Folger Shakespeare Library. Shakespeare and Girlhood. 2016.
Rawson, Hugh. Gender Benders. Cambridge Dictionary Blog. 2012.