Gibson Girl
- noun
- /ˈɡɪbsən ɡɜrl/
- Archaic
:
Gibson Girl
- Many people in the early 20th century aspired to the image of the Gibson Girl as a symbol of femininity.
Examples
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Illustrations of the Gibson Girl revealed the societal expectations of women during the turn of the century.
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The term Gibson Girl describes an idealized woman from the early 1900s, known for her beauty and independence.
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Karen, you're a Gibson girl.
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What's the idea sending that faded Gibson girl to fetch me?
Synonyms
4
4.6
A woman who represents a quality, cause, or group
Surface Forms
Morphology
Gibson + girl
This is a culture‑specific eponym named after illustrator Charles Dana Gibson; knowing the constituent words ('Gibson' — a proper name, and 'girl' — female person) does not let a B1 learner infer the historicized, idealized early‑20th‑century image. The meaning is a lexicalized, culturally bound label rather than a predictable composition of its parts, so it is not derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Gibson Girl comes from artist Charles Dana Gibson, who drew the same picture of a confident girl with high piled hair and a stylish long dress in magazines around 1900. Because these drawings showed one 'ideal' look again and again, the name Gibson Girl came to mean 'an ideal American young woman' of that time.