Word.ws English Dictionary

Gibson Girl

Gibson Girl noun: a personification of American ideal feminine beauty around the beginning of the 20th century, depicted as voluptuous but ladylike and fashionable.

gibson girl: a personification of American ideal feminine beauty around the beginning of the 20th century,...
Image: Charles Dana Gibson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Gibson Girl (plural Gibson Girls)

  1. A personification of American ideal feminine beauty around the beginning of the 20th century, depicted as voluptuous but ladylike and fashionable.
  2. (US, historical, slang) A survival radio transmitter carried by aircraft on over-water operations.

Forms of Gibson Girl

pluralGibson Girls

Origin of Gibson Girl

Introduced in the satirical works of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson in the 1890s. (radio transmitter): So called from its hourglass shape (allowing it to be held between one's legs while the generator handle was turned), supposed to resemble a womanly figure.

Questions about Gibson Girl

What does Gibson Girl mean?
Gibson Girl means a personification of American ideal feminine beauty around the beginning of the 20th century, depicted as voluptuous but ladylike and fashionable.
What part of speech is Gibson Girl?
Gibson Girl is a noun.
What is the plural of Gibson Girl?
The plural of Gibson Girl is Gibson Girls.

Words near Gibson Girl in the dictionary

  1. gibsmedats
  2. Gibson
  3. Gibson City
  4. Gibson County
  5. Gibson Desert
  6. Gibson Girl
  7. Gibson Girls
  8. Gibson ring
  9. Gibson rings
  10. Gibson's paradox
  11. Gibsonburg

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Gibson Girl (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Gibson Girl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gibson_girl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.