gurl

Variant spelling of girl.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɝl/, /ɡʊɹ(ə)l/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɜːl/

• Audio (US, [ɡɝːɫ]):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)l
• Homophone: girl

gurl (plural gurls)

1. (informal, nonstandard or eye dialect) Alternative form of girl.
   • 1920, Zane Grey, The U.P. Trail:

     An' Lee went closer to where the gurl was waitin'. His party follered an' I follered too.... Jest whin the moosic sthopped an' the gurl looked up—thin she seen Lee.

   • 2012, Krystina V, A Diva's love Affair, →ISBN, page 22:

     Damn white gurl Thought you was A1 Yet your existence a none

   • 2013, Karen L. Kilcup, Angela Sorby, Over the River and Through the Wood, →ISBN:

     All gurl's good fur—jist To dust an' sweep, an' scold, An' sew on buttons what yo mus't Sewin' on last week. Wush't Iwuz a boy!

   • 2025 June 21, Jo Ellison, “The Bezos merger we all want a piece of”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 22:

     Gurl! How well we know that feeling.

2. (LGBTQ slang) Term of address between cis gay men, transgender women, or drag queens.
3. (LGBTQ) A trans girl or woman.
   • 2016, Cindy I-Fen Cheng, The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies:

     For example, “queer” would include self-identified lesbians and gays who also have sex with the “opposite sex,” sexual practices and relationships that include kink, s/m, polyamory, and pansexuality, gender play and fuck including femmes and those feminine of center, butches and those masculine of center, queens, femboys, gurls, bois, sissies, tomboys, crossdressers, drag queens and kings, and genderfluid people.

• girl
• boi

From Middle English gurlen (“to growl, rumble”).

gurl (third-person singular simple present gurls, present participle gurling, simple past and past participle gurled)

1. (Scotland, Ireland) To growl or snarl.
   • 1834, Samuel Lover, Legends and Stories of Ireland:

     The poor little doctor, thus rudely and suddenly aroused from his tipsy sleep, looked excessively bewildered when he opened his eyes, and met the glare of ferocious delight that Darby Kelleher cast upon him, and he gurled out, “What's the matter?” as well as the grip of Darby's hand upon his throat would permit him.

   • 1845, Alexander Wilson, Poetical Works: With an Extended Memoir of His Life and Writings:

     “Weel may ye mind, yon night sae black, Whan fearfu' winds loud gurled, And mony a lum dang down—and stack, Heigh i' the air up swirled, Alangst yon brae, ye clam, and stack,

From Middle English gurle.

• IPA^(key): /ɡorl/^[1]

gurl (plural gurlès)

1. child, girl^[2]

• gurlish