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If you use the word “girl” these days, you’re likely talking about little Suzy or young Sally. But way back in the 1300s, you might have been referring to little Bobby or young Billy as well. The word “gyrle” (which is where we get “girl”) was used for any child or young person, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. For proof, Quartz points to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the late 1300s, in which he wrote: “In daunger hadde he at his owene gyse / The yonge gerles of the diocise, / And knew hir conseil, and was al hir reed.” Quartz explains that “the Summoner knows all the secrets of the young people in the diocese—not just the young girls.”
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