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OneKitly

girly

adjectivenounadverbattested in dialogue

  • United States//ˈɡɝli//
  • Australia//ˈɡɜːli//
  • New Zealand//ˈɡøːli//
  • Scotland//ˈɡɪɾle//
  • //ɡeːli//

Characteristic of a stereotypical girl, very effeminate, gentle; unmasculine.

adjective

  1. 1

    Characteristic of a stereotypical girl, very effeminate, gentle; unmasculine.

    As a mom of two girls – including one who hopes Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos calls her to play on his team in this week’s Super Bowl – I can totally relate. I, along with so many other parents, am frustrated about the definitions of what’s girly and what’s not, and the separate products and clothing offered to girls and boys.

    The Forever21 of Korean makeup, Etude House is geared toward the girliest of girls – and Japanese tourists.

    Where Lulu was a bit girlier and took more delight in gossip, Tea claims to be more focused on safety, but they general gist is similar.

  2. 2

    slangOf, or pertaining to, a young, attractive woman; especially one who is scantily clad.

    a girly calendar

  3. 3

    slangWeak; wussy.

    There was enough food for a soccer team and we were going to grill it. Our meatfest included no girly utensils, no wussy plates. Just our hands, mouths, and incisors.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *gaurā Proto-West Germanic *-ilā Proto-West Germanic *gurilā Old English *gyrele? Middle English girle English girl Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English girly From girl + -y (adjectival sufix).

noun

  1. 1

    A girl.

    “Hey girly!” Chiles said. “What’s up!” / “Oh my gosh,” Raisman said. “How did you get in our hotel room?”

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *gaurā Proto-West Germanic *-ilā Proto-West Germanic *gurilā Old English *gyrele? Middle English girle English girl Proto-Germanic *-j-, *-ij- Proto-West Germanic *-i, *-ī Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English girly From girl + -y (diminutive suffix).

adverb

  1. 1

    rareIn the manner of a girl.

    And its^([sic]) not just the blue nail polish. It’s the way his mind is attuned. He is incredibly in touch and in tune with females. Females surround him in his company. His partner in Jersey Films is Stacey Scherr.^([sic]) He can talk about boyfriends. He can talk girly.

    ‘He really cares about you,’ Slider said awkwardly. Doing the old bosom-baring on your own behalf was bad enough, but having to talk girly about a male friend was as easy as eating a sand sandwich.

    Your boobs are too small. AND YOU DON’T TALK GIRLY ENOUGH!

    Just a half hour earlier, I had checked in by text with Eric. “Hey, Sugarbuns. Remember, I’m at Dag’s. Going to talk girly and drown my sorrow in mojitos.”

Etymology

From girl + -ly (adverbial suffix), after the adjective.

Forms

plural
girlies
comparative
girlier
superlative
girliest
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).