girl Friday

noun

Older Use: Sometimes Offensive.

plural

girl Fridays 

1. gal Friday.

girl Friday

noun

1. a female employee who has a wide range of duties, usually including secretarial and clerical work

Word History and Origins

Origin of girl Friday¹

First recorded in 1935–40; modeled on man Friday

Word History and Origins

Origin of girl Friday¹

C20: coined on the pattern of _{man Friday}

Idioms and Phrases

Also, gal Friday. An efficient and faithful female assistant, as in I'll have my girl Friday get the papers together. The expression plays on man Friday, a name for a devoted male servant or assistant. The name Friday comes from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, whose shipwrecked hero named the young native who became his faithful companion for the day of the week when he found him. In the mid-1900s Friday was applied to a male servant and then a women secretary or clerk who works for a man. The expression girl Friday gained currency through a motion picture starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday (1940). Today it tends to be considered condescending and, applied to a woman, sexist.