girlish
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɡɜː.lɪʃ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡɝ.lɪʃ/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)lɪʃ
Adjective
[edit]girlish (comparative more girlish, superlative most girlish)
- Like (that of) a girl; feminine.
- 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 2, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
- She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it.
- 1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC, Act 1:
- Three little maids from school are we, / Pert as a school-girl well can be, / Filled to the brim with girlish glee, / Three little maids from school!
- 1898, William Watson, “Song”, in The Hope of the World and Other Poems[1], London: John Lane, page 41:
- April, April, / Laugh thy girlish laughter; / Then, the moment after, / Weep thy girlish tears!
- (archaic) Of or relating to girlhood.
- 1602, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, London: E. Law, 1769, pp. 119-20, [2]
- This village was the birth-place of Thomasine Bonauenture, I know not, whether by descent, or euent, so called: for whiles in her girlish age she kept sheepe on the foreremembered moore, it chanced that a London merchant passing by, saw her […] .
- 1602, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, London: E. Law, 1769, pp. 119-20, [2]
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]like a girl
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