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gal

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English has two words spelled gal: an informal word for a girl, which represents a pronunciation of girl, and a unit of acceleration named after Galileo.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

gal1 girl

Etymology

The girl is a spelling of a colloquial or regional pronunciation of girl, American or southern English;[2][5][6][3] compare gell, the 19th-century literary form of the northern English variant.[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A girl or woman: 1795, when Benjamin Dearborn's Columbian Grammar listed gal for girl among vulgarisms.[2][5][7][3]

Semantic evolution

According to Dalzell, it was noted as Cockney in 1824 but rose socially until it was quite upper-class by about 1840; from about 1850 it could mean a servant girl or a prostitute, and by about 1860 a sweetheart.[8] It was current in American jazz and jive talk in the 1930s, and by about 2000 it sounded patronising or kitsch.[8] The Shorter Oxford labels it slang and dialect, now chiefly North American.[6] In the United States to go gallin' meant to go courting, from 1840,[7] and g'hal was the girlfriend of a b'hoy in 1849.[5] Gal Friday, after Robinson Crusoe, dates from 1940.[5]

Timeline

  • 1795 – listed as a vulgarism (Dearborn).[2][7]
  • 1824 – noted as Cockney.[8]
  • 1840 – go gallin', to go courting (US).[7]
  • c. 1850 – a servant girl; a prostitute.[8]
  • c. 1860 – a sweetheart.[8]
  • 1940 – Gal Friday.[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (informal) A girl or woman.

Word family

  • gal pal

gal2 unit of acceleration

Etymology

The unit is named after the Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei (died 1642),[3][2][1][9] as a shortening of his name.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A unit of acceleration, used for the force of gravity, equal to one centimetre per second per second: 1914, in Otto Klotz's letter to Nature.[2][3]

Timeline

  • 1914 – the unit (Klotz, Nature).[2][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (physics) A unit of acceleration equal to one centimetre per second per second, used especially in measuring gravity.

Word family

  • milligal

References

  1. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  8. ^ a b c d e Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
  9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins