Word.ws English Dictionary

kogal

US/ˈkoʊɡæl/

kogal noun: a subculture of conspicuous consumption among young women in urban Japan, typified by dyed hair, artificial suntan, platform boots, miniskirts, and expensive accessories.

Noun

kogal (countable and uncountable, plural kogals or kogal)

  1. (uncountable) A subculture of conspicuous consumption among young women in urban Japan, typified by dyed hair, artificial suntan, platform boots, miniskirts, and expensive accessories.
    • If not exactly respectable, kogal culture is not condemned anything like as harshly as manifestations of pedophilia would be elsewhere […]2003, Philip Jenkins, Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet
    • Kogal tackiness was egalitarian, and contrasted with the cute and conservative styles […]2004, Gordon Mathews, Bruce White, Japan's Changing Generations
  2. (countable) A member of this subculture.
    • Because of the links drawn between kogals and enjo kosai ("compensated dating"), in which women and girls are paid for dates and sometimes sex […]2006, David Richard Leheny, Think Global, Fear Local
    • Runa is a gyaru (gal), particularly a kogal and one of the popular girls in school.2023 March 16, Brandon Lyttle, “Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me premieres this year”, in Niche Gamer, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2023

Synonyms of kogal

Forms of kogal

pluralkogals
pluralkogal

Origin of kogal

Borrowed from Japanese コギャル (kogyaru, “younger gyaru”) (see there for more), ultimately from English gal.

Questions about kogal

What does kogal mean?
Kogal means a subculture of conspicuous consumption among young women in urban Japan, typified by dyed hair, artificial suntan, platform boots, miniskirts, and expensive accessories.
What part of speech is kogal?
Kogal is a noun.
How do you pronounce kogal?
Kogal is pronounced /ˈkoʊɡæl/ (US).
What is the plural of kogal?
The plural of kogal is kogals.

Words near kogal in the dictionary

  1. kofuns
  2. Koga
  3. kogagenin
  4. kogaionid
  5. kogaionids
  6. kogal
  7. kogals
  8. Kogan
  9. Kogans
  10. Kogarah
  11. Kogarah Bay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kogal (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: “kogal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kogal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.