girl-child

noun

variants or girl child

plural girl-children or girl children

: a young female child

On the summer evening – Tom Hard took the girl child to the house of a relative where she had been invited to spend the night.

—Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio, 1919

But then I … look at the sleeping girl-child in my arms, her small hand curled around one of my fingers …

—W. P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe, 1982

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1755, in the meaning defined above

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