Published on: 2026-06-13
Obscure Linguistics and Word Origins
The word 'girl' originally held a very different meaning in Middle English. What was it?
Correct
Back in the day, the word was completely gender-neutral and just referred to a sassy little kid of any sort. As for the other ideas, imagining these ancient words meant birds, fancy textiles, or forest sprites is a fun flight of fancy, but there is no etymological evidence to back those up. It turns out history just decided to narrow the focus to young ladies exclusively, leaving the guys to find a different label for their youth.