Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A female companion or friend with whom one has a sexual or romantic relationship.
  • noun A female friend.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun any female friend.
  • noun a girl or young woman with whom a man is romantically involved.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A female partner in a romantic relationship.
  • noun A female friend.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a girl or young woman with whom a man is romantically involved
  • noun any female friend

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

girl +‎ friend

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Examples

Comments

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  • My girlfriend she's at the end, she is starting to cry.

    October 21, 2007

  • It's always really confused me when women refer to other female friends of theirs as "girlfriends". Can't really say why.

    Besides all that, this is a rather ugly word.

    December 29, 2010

  • Same for me (I don't find it an ugly word, though).

    Also, if a man referred to their male friends as "boyfriends", people would immediately think of something else...

    December 29, 2010

  • Does it help if there's a space between the words for those times when it's a girl-who's-a-friend or a boy-who's-a-friend?

    December 29, 2010

  • I find it odd, too. In the UK a woman's femal friends are simply her "friends".

    December 30, 2010