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girl Friday
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noun, plural girl Fridays.Older Use: Sometimes Offensive.
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Origin of girl Friday
First recorded in 1935–40; modeled on man Friday
Words nearby girl Friday
girdle traverse, gird one's loins, Girgenti, girl, girl band, girl Friday, girlfriend, girlfriend experience, girl guide, girlhood, girlie
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use girl Friday in a sentence
British Dictionary definitions for girl Friday
girl Friday
noun
a female employee who has a wide range of duties, usually including secretarial and clerical work
Word Origin for girl Friday
C20: coined on the pattern of man Friday
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with girl Friday
girl Friday
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.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.