bar girl
- noun
- /bɑr ɡɜrl/
- Slang
- As a bar girl, she often receives tips from satisfied patrons.
Examples
-
During their visit, they enjoyed engaging conversations with the bar girl.
-
Bobby's was one of the few places that catered to foreigners but not tourists, which meant bar girls weren't constantly thrusting themselves.
Fiction book (1996) -
Pratt looked around again and caught the eye of the bar girl.
Fiction book (1992) -
My mother was a bar girl in Manila.
Fiction book (2001) -
A bar girl named Mani poured Wutai and me a round of black coffee.
Fiction book (1991) -
Most of them had married Thai women, ex-bar girls who now ran little export businesses or restaurants, and the men still talked and acted like they were on leave, kind of a permanent R&R.
Fiction book (1996) -
Lots of the other patients were bar girls and boys, and junkies into the bargain, since rich people or those with well-connected relatives knew better than to entrust themselves to any government hospital.
Fiction book (1996) -
She had become a bar girl after leaving one of the many prairie wagons that were carrying a full supply of brides-to-be for the men who had settled in the west.
Fiction book (2002) -
The bar girl served drinks and chatted with the customers all night.
Synonyms
A woman paid by a bar to talk with men and get them to buy drinks
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound simply combines 'bar' (a place where drinks are served) and 'girl' (a female), so a B1 learner would readily infer a female associated with a bar (present or working there). However, the specific occupational and social connotations in the provided definition—being employed to socialize with male customers, exchange drinks or tips, and the pragmatic/possibly euphemistic nuance—are conventionalized and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Bar girl comes from the simple idea of a girl who works in a bar and spends time talking with customers to sell drinks or earn tips. That's why the phrase now means 'a woman employed by a bar to socialize with and act as a companion to male customers'.