Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
noun
A woman, a girl.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, derogatory
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Borrowed from Arabic بِنْت (bint, “girl, daughter”), from Proto-Semitic *bint-, used to denote a patronym. The term entered the British lexicon during the occupation of Egypt at the end of the 19th century, where it was adopted by British soldiers to mean "girlfriend" or "bit on the side". Its register varies from that of the harsher bitch to being affectionate, the latter more commonly associated with the West Midlands. The term was used in British armed forces and the London area synonymously with bird in its slang usage (and sometimes brass) from at least the 1950s. (In the Tyneside shipping industry, particularly in Laygate, in South Shields, the term may have been adopted earlier, from the Yemeni community which had existed there since the 1890s.)
