Word.ws English Dictionary

hello girl

Syllables: hel·lo girlUK/həˈləʊ ˌɡɜːl/US/hɛˈloʊ ˌɡɝl/

hello girl noun: a female telephone operator.

hello girl: a female telephone operator
Image: Sgt. Abbott, United States Army Signal Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

hello girl (plural hello girls)

  1. (dated, informal) A female telephone operator.
    • The latest model of the multiple switch-board is in position, and in a few days the "Hello" girls will render complete the inside view of a modern telephone exchange.1884 September, “The International Electrical Exhibition at Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 1884”, in F. L. Pope, editor, The Electrician and Electrical Engineer. A Monthly Review of Theoretical and Applied...
    • Surely, we must include the Long-Distance Telephone among the electrical achievements of the year. And if we may add the automatic switch-board, by which the services of the "hello-girl" are to be dispensed with; and if the new company, just formed in Chicago, fulfill its promise to give us...1893, J[ohn] T. Pettee, “Annual Address: A Review of the Year 1892 by the President”, in Transactions of the Scientific Association, Meriden, Conn., Meriden, Conn.: Press of E. A. Horton & Co....
    Synonyms:
    telephone girl

Synonyms of hello girl

Forms of hello girl

pluralhello girls

Origin of hello girl

From the fact that the telephone operators would greet callers with “Hello” when contacted.

Questions about hello girl

What does hello girl mean?
Hello girl means a female telephone operator.
What part of speech is hello girl?
Hello girl is a noun.
How do you pronounce hello girl?
Hello girl is pronounced /həˈləʊ ˌɡɜːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of hello girl?
The plural of hello girl is hello girls.

Words near hello girl in the dictionary

  1. hellmen
  2. hellmouth
  3. hellmouths
  4. hello
  5. hello again
  6. hello girl
  7. hello girls
  8. hello nurse
  9. hello nurses
  10. hello there
  11. hello world

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hello 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-hello girl.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hello girl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hello_girl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.