big girl's blouse

noun

"big-girl-s-blouse" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“big girl's blouse” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
17
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An effeminate or weak man, a sissy.

Corpus desk

Index EN-big-girl-s-blouse · big girl's blouse · English

big girl's blouse · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 17 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "B" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for big girl's blouse
PropertyValue
Headwordbig girl's blouse
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters17
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “big girl's blouse” in English

big girl's blouseranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

big girl's blouse is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An effeminate or weak man, a sissy.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for big girl's blouse, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: First recorded (1969) in the television sitcom Nearest and Dearest, used by the character Nellie Pledge (played by comedienne Hylda Baker). It has been suggested that Baker had previously used this expression in her stage act. The correct English form is big girl's blouse, spelled B-I-G- -G-I-R-L-'-S- -B-L-O-U-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    An effeminate or weak man, a sissy.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how big girl's blouse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. You can see why people might think you’re a bit of a big girl’s blouse, because you have manicures, sunbeds and bleach your hair.
  2. The reason for this was not because I was a big girl's blouse – no matter what anyone else says – but because as a fast bowler the big toe on the landing foot, which was the right in my case, is always in a state of disrepair.

Etymology

First recorded (1969) in the television sitcom Nearest and Dearest, used by the character Nellie Pledge (played by comedienne Hylda Baker). It has been suggested that Baker had previously used this expression in her stage act.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "big girl's blouse"?
"big girl's blouse" is spelled B-I-G- -G-I-R-L-'-S- -B-L-O-U-S-E.
What does "big girl's blouse" mean?
As a noun, "big girl's blouse" means: An effeminate or weak man, a sissy.
What is the origin of the word "big girl's blouse"?
First recorded (1969) in the television sitcom Nearest and Dearest, used by the character Nellie Pledge (played by comedienne Hylda Baker). It has been suggested that Baker had previously used this expression in her stage act. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list