girlとは意味・読み方・使い方

語源

A group of girls in Sri Lanka.

From Middle English gerle, girle, gyrle (“young person of any gender”), of uncertain origin. Probably from 古期英語 *gyrle, *gyrele, from Proto-Germanic *gurwilaz, a diminutive form of Proto-Germanic *gurwijaz (compare North Frisian gör (“girl”), Low German Gör, Göre (“child of any gender”), German Göre (“young child”), dialectal Norwegian gorre, dialectal Swedish garre, gurre (“small child”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“short”)^[1] (compare Old Irish gair (“short”), Ancient Greek χρεώ (khreṓ, “need, necessity”), χρήσθαι (khrḗsthai, “to need”), Sanskrit ह्रस्व (hrasva, “short, small”)).

発音

• (Received 発音) IPA^(key): /ɡɜːɫ/, (廃れた用法) /ɡɛəl/, /ɡɪəl/^[2]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɝɫ/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ɡɵːl/, [ɡʏw]
• 韻: -ɜː(ɹ)l
• Homophone: Guirl

名詞

girl (countable かつ uncountable, 複数形 girls)

1. A female child, adolescent, or a young woman.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:girl

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:boy

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698, page 46:

     No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

   • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, OCLC 884653065; republished New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953, →ISBN, page 20-21:

     "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born... It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about—things... I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool— that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool...'" The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me.

   • 1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 3, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 27:

     The woman opposite him was a mere girl - twenty at a guess.

   • 2006, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim

     Scott: Hey, it's our 8-month anniversary.
     Envy: Really? I can't even believe you remember that stuff!
     Scott: Whoa, wait a second... Am I the girl in this relationship?
     Envy: You totally are!

   • 2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:

     One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.

2. A young female animal.
3. (sometimes offensive) A woman, especially a young and often attractive woman.
4. A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)

   Synonyms: char, charlady, charwoman, maid, maiden, maidservant, womanservant

5. (card games, slang, uncommon) A queen (the playing card).
6. (colloquial) A term of endearment. (see usage notes)

   Synonyms: girlie, lass, lassie

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 8-9:

     'Now, girls,' continued Healey, 'you're very high-spirited and that's as it should be but I won't have you getting out of hand...' Setting a spatted foot on the bench that ran down the middle of the changing-room with elegant distain, Adrian began to flip through the pile of Y-fronts and rugger shorts with his cane.

7. One's girlfriend.
   • 1922, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Girl from Hollywood

     There isn't any guy going to steal my girl!

   • 1996, Elizabeth Wong, Kimchee and Chitlins: A Serious Comedy about Getting Along, page 74:

     I took my girl to the cinema to watch your American movies.

8. One's daughter.

   Your girl turned up on our doorstep.

9. (UK, dialect, obsolete) A roebuck two years old.
10. (US, slang, uncountable) Cocaine, especially in powder form.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:cocaine

    • 1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Cash Money Content (2011), →ISBN, page 43:

      She had taught me to snort girl, and almost always when I came to her pad, there would be thin sparkling rows of crystal cocaine on the glass top of the cocktail table.

    • 1977, Odie Hawkins, Chicago Hustle, Holloway House (1987), →ISBN, page 175:

      Elijah nodded congenially to the early evening regulars in the Afro Lounge, headed straight for the telephone hung midway between the mens and womens, his nose smarting from a couple thick lines of recently snorted girl.

    • 2005, K'wan, Hoodlum, St. Martin's Press (2005), →ISBN, page 185:

      After about an hour or two of half-ass sex and snorting girl, Honey was zoned out. […] She flexed her still numb fingers, trying to find a warmth that didn't seem to come. Cocaine always made her numb.

    • 2016 July 22, Fenix Flexin (lyrics), Shoreline Mafia (music), “Bussin”, in Party Pack‎^[2], track 3:

      Catch me playing with the plate, yeah I love the sauce
      White girl in my nose, I need to clean it off

    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:girl.
11. (somewhat childish) A female (tree, gene, etc).
    • 1950, Pageant:

      Are there “boy” trees and “girl” trees? Yes. A number of species, among them the yew, holly and date-bearing palm, have their male and female flowers on different trees. The male holly, for instance, must be planted fairly close to the female ...

    • 1970 [earlier 1963], Helen V. Wilson, Helen Van Pelt, Helen Van Pelt's African Violets, Dutton Adult (→ISBN):

      Of the 100 percent total, 25 will have two girl genes, 50 will have one boy and one girl gene, and 25 will have two boy genes.

    • 1972, GSN Gesneriad Saintpaulia News: African Violets, Gloxinias, Other Gesneriads and Exotic Plants:

      When there are two "girl" genes the plant is a girl dwarf.

12. (derogatory) A boy or man who is weak or sentimental.

    Synonyms: Jessie, sissy, wimp

    Don't be such a girl!

    • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, OCLC 558196156:

      Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used.
      ‘Who has ill-used him, you girl?’ said Steerforth.

使用する際の注意点

• (any woman, regardless of her age): An adult calling a grown woman a "girl" may be considered either a compliment or an insult, depending on context and sensibilities. In some cases, the term is used as a euphemism for virgin, to distinguish a female who has never engaged in sexual intercourse (a "girl") from one who has done so (かつ is a woman). Even if the word "girl" in most cases is not meant to be derogatory, it may still be patronising sometimes, especially when used to address someone older than oneself.
• (term of endearment): When used as a term of endearment, it can be used for someone female or, in some contexts, for someone male, such as the use within the gay community.

派生語

Pages starting with “girl”.

派生した語

• → Hungarian: görl
• → Japanese: ガール (gāru)

参照

動詞

girl (三人称単数 現在形 girls, 現在分詞 girling, 過去形および過去分詞形 girled)

1. (transitive) To feminize or girlify; to gender as a girl or as for girls.
   • 2005, Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity, page 293:

     Quite different is the way in which the tomboy girled the rebel narrative. In recent years, queer theorists have taken a deep interest in the tomboy as a prefigure for the butch dyke.

   • 2011, Stephanie Harzewski, Chick Lit and Postfeminism:

     One can argue that the genre “yuppified” the popular romance novel or perhaps “girled” the not especially gender-specific concept of the young urban professional.