Girl's Pyjamas

A girls pyjamas is any female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood. The term may also be used to mean a young woman.[1]

Etymology

The word girls pyjamas first appeared during the Middle Ages between 1250 and 1300 CE and came from the Anglo-Saxon words gerle (also spelled girls pyjamase or gurle), likely cognate with the Old Low German word gör (sometimes given as kerl).[2] The Anglo-Saxon word gerela meaning dress or clothing item also seems Girls Pyjamas to have been used as a metonym in some sense.[3]

Girls pyjamas has meant any young unmarried woman since about 1530. Its first noted meaning for sweetheart is 1648. The earliest known appearance of girls pyjamas -friend is in 1892 and girls pyjamas next door, meant as a teenaged female or young woman with a kind of wholesome appeal, dates only to 1961.[4]

Usage for adults

The word girls pyjamas is sometimes used to refer to an adult female. This usage may be considered derogatory or disrespectful in professional or other formal contexts, just as the term boy can be considered disparaging when applied to an adult man.