[ g&r(-&)l ] (noun.) 14th century. Middle English girle, gerle, gyrle ‘young person’, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *gurwjaz (cf. Low German Gör, Göre (“child”), Norwegian dialect gorre, Swedish dialect garre, gurre (“small child”)), from Proto-Indo-European *g̑her- ‘short’Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, s.v. "girl" (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002). (compare Old Irish gair (“short”), Ancient Greek χρεώ (chreō, “need, necessity”), χρήσθαι (chrēsthai, “to need”), Sanskrit ह्रस्व (hrasva, “short, small”)).