1. “Girl” was originally gender-neutral
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In Middle English (c. 1200s–1400s), girle/gerle/gurl/gurle meant a child or young person, with no reference to sex.
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If you wanted to specify, people actually said:
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knave-girl → male child
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gay-girl → female child
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So girl was just “child,” period.
2. How it shifted
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By the late Middle English → Early Modern English period (1400s–1500s), girl narrowed in meaning from “child” → specifically “female child.”
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This is when English vocabulary for age/sex was reshuffling, and “boy” was rising in popularity (see below).
3. “Boy” in contrast
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In early use, boy wasn’t even neutral — it was a derogatory term for a servant or low-status person (male or female).
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Later, by around the 14th–15th century, it shifted toward meaning a male youth (usually post-puberty, but before full adulthood).
So originally:
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Boy = servant/low-born person → later “male youth.”
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Girl = child (any sex) → later “female child.”
4. Other words in the system
Since English was reshuffling:
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Maid/maiden = young unmarried woman (often after puberty).
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Young lady/damsel = also used for post-puberty females of some social status.
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Knave/lad = words that filled the male youth gap.
So you had a more layered vocabulary, and girl/boy weren’t the neat opposites we think of now.
5. Why did “girl” feminize?
Scholars think it’s because society needed a consistent pair of opposites (boy vs. girl) as boy stabilized into “male youth.” Since wifmann/woman was already occupied for adult women, girl got pushed into the “female child” role.