Girly

How to spell girly

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce girly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does girly mean?

1. adjectiveCharacteristic of, suited to, or appealing to girls or young women, often in a soft, decorative, or playful way.

Girly in a sentence

• She decorated the spare room in a soft, girly shade of pink.

• The gift shop sold girly accessories like glitter clips and pastel purses.

Where does girly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on 'girl', a noun whose origins are surprisingly murky. In Middle English the form 'gurle' or 'girle' simply meant a young child of either sex, and only over the course of the later medieval period did it narrow to mean a female child specifically. Scholars have never settled on a confident source; one suggestion links it to an Old English root for clothing or a young garment-wearer, while others point to Low German relatives such as 'gör' for a small child. The adjective 'girly' was formed much later within English by adding the everyday suffix '-y', which turns a noun into 'having the qualities of', exactly as in 'sandy' or 'milky'. The spelling trap is the ending: writers waver between the standard adjective '-y' here and the alternative noun spelling 'girlie', so it helps to remember that the plain adjective drops the 'ie'.

How the word is built

• girl (young female)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'characteristic of')