working girl
3
3.3
- noun
- /ˈwɜrkɪŋ ɡɜrl/
- Archaic
:
mujer trabajadora
- She's a working girl.
It is definitely commendable and you indeed are a very hard working girl.
- It is definitely commendable and you indeed are a very hard working girl.
Examples
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All us working girls are pals.
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Not bad for a working girl.
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Homage to the working girls out there who want to look cute.
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This season, on the Drew Barrymore Show, one working girl takes on the world.
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She's a working girl, mostly Stark Street.
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She's a good girl and she's a working girl.
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Kathy Clarke was one of the hardest-working girls in Mountainview School.
Fiction book (1997) -
And I think that's allowing women, females to connect with this character because it's not, you know, the glamorous girl, it's the working girl that's really just trying.
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Being a working girl in a big city can be both exciting and challenging.
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Many young women aspire to be a working girl who can support themselves financially.
Synonyms
14
3.2
A woman who has a paid job doing physical tasks outside the home, often in a factory
A woman who does paid work in a factory or manual job
A woman who does physical work in a factory or workshop
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although the words 'working' and 'girl' literally yield 'a woman who has a job', the specific sense 'a woman who works as a prostitute' is a euphemistic, idiomatic meaning that is not predictable from the constituents. A B1 learner who knows both words would most likely infer the literal employment reading and would need prior exposure to recognize the prostitution sense, so the expression is not transparently compositional.
Etymology
Working girl originally named a young woman who does paid work. The image of a working girl going to a job helps explain why it means 'a woman who is employed'.