paper doll
3
1.8
- noun
- /ˈpeɪpər dɔl/
- Baby Talk
:
muñeca de papel
- Virtual paper dolls exist online for doll play, and there is software for creating them.
- paper doll cutout
- make paper dolls
- playing with paper dolls
Examples
-
And paper dolls were the things that I drew when I was a very little girl.
-
Many doll magazines had paper dolls, and some, like Doll Castle News, still feature them.
Blog text (13) -
Her father had bought her a paper doll one day.
Fiction book (2000) -
I was a big fan of paper dolls when I was small.
Blog text (17) -
We girls at the Pearl Street School collected paper dolls cut from the Sunday comics, mostly Boots, "Tillie the Toiler," and "Fritzie Ritz."
Fiction book (1991) -
The scouts had many varieties of paper dolls, and Lettie Lane, Dolly Dingle, and Betsy McCall began to appear in magazines.
Blog text (13) -
She played for hours with her new paper doll, dressing it in various outfits.
-
The children enjoyed making their own paper dolls and putting on puppet shows.
-
Her favorite toy was a paper doll that she could customize with different clothes.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a doll made from paper' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'paper' (thin fibrous sheets) with 'doll' (a small toy human); a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the compound meaning. This noun+noun compounding follows regular English composition patterns and has clear equivalents in many languages, making the expression immediately comprehensible.
Etymology
Paper doll comes from the simple image of a sheet of paper cut or folded into the shape of a doll you can hold or dress. That's why it now means 'a doll made from paper'.