tomboy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a girl who behaves or dresses in ways traditionally associated with boys

   As a child, she was called a tomboy because she preferred climbing trees to wearing formal dresses.

A compound of Tom, once a generic name for a man or boy, + boy. In the sixteenth century it first referred to a boisterous boy, then to a bold or immodest woman, before developing its modern gender-role sense for a girl.

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