Tomboy

Definition: Tomboy

Tomboy

Noun

1. A girl who behaves in a boyish manner.

Date "tomboy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references)

Etymology: Tomboy \Tom"boy`\, noun. [Tom (for Thomas, from Latin expression Thomas, from the Greek expression )+ boy.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definition: Tomboy

Domain	Definition
Slang in 1811	TOMBOY. A romping girl, who prefers the amusement used by boys to those of her own sex. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Tomboy

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A tomboy is a girl who behaves according to the stereotypical gender role of a boy. This can include various things:

Wearing non-feminine clothes, typically for comfort or practicality. See: cross-dresser.
Enjoying boy's stereotypical games, interests and activities, such as running, jumping, climbing trees, science and baseball.

Many girls can be seen as exhibiting a mixture of both tomboy and girly girl behavior, and this has been held up by many gender role students as the "ideal" female lifestyle as their view is that if a girl either exhibits an extreme image of a tomboy or a girly girl, she misses out on too many experiences.¹ However, critics of this hold that such idealistic image of an intermediate, "uni-sex" behavior is a stereotype by itself, and too general to actually mean anything.

Some contribute, and some tomboys themselves think, the substantial cause of their inclination is spending their childhood and/or adolescence in an environment where the male presence or action predominates, and having therefore a lack of female role models. For example,

a family with:
- more than 2 brothers and 1 or less sister, or
- a single father
a school mostly of boys, hence the tomboy befriends few girls.

Historically tomboys were defined by both behaviour (according to the sterotypical gender role of boys) and wearing boys' clothing. In recent times, as the use of "traditional" clothing such as dresses, blouses and skirts steadily declines among females, the distinction has become almost solely one of behaviour.

A tiny fraction of tomboys may be diagnosed as suffering from gender identity disorder.

Notes

¹ This "middle" philosophy was defined by one girl as "No I don't have any pink outfits or shorty shorts, I don't go for cheerleading tryouts, and I don't constantly stare in the mirror - but I also don't only shop in the boys department, dislike people for acting prissy, or get sweaty playing football every afternoon." [1]

See also: butch, sissy

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Tomboy."

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Synonyms: Tomboy

Synonyms: hoyden (n), romp (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Tomboy

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Vulgarity	Rough diamond, tomboy, hoyden, cub, unlicked cub; clown; (commonalty); Goth, Vandal, Boeotian; snob, cad, gent; parvenu; frump, dowdy; slattern.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Tomboy

English words defined with "tomboy": Tomrig. (references)

Etymologies containing "tomboy": tomcat, tomfool, Tomnoddy. (references)

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Modern Usage: Tomboy

Domain

Usage

Movie/TV Titles

Tomboy and the Champ (1961)

Barrymore Tomboy (1927)

The Tomboy (1921)

My Tomboy Girl (1915)

Miss Tomboy and Freckles (1914)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Tomboy

Domain	Title
Books	His Tomboy Bride (Silhouette Romance , No 1305) (reference) Jo's Girls : Tomboy Tales of High Adventure, True Grit, and Real Life (reference) The Tomboy Terror in Bunk 109 (reference) Tomboy (reference) Tomboy Ranch (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	Tomboy (reference) Tomboy & The Champ (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Tomboy

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Photo Album: Tomboy

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Tomboy. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Usage Frequency: Tomboy

"Tomboy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Tomboy" is used about 43 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	43	52,181

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Tomboy

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
tomboy	85
tomboy tool	18
girl tomboy	7
lesbian tomboy	6
hesa keepa tomboy	4
shirt tomboy	3
picture tomboy	3
movie tomboy	2
shemale tomboy	2
restaurant tomboy	2
fat tomboy	2
pee standing tomboy	2
michäel tomboy	2
clothes tomboy	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Tomboy

Language		Translations for "tomboy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Bulgarian		мъжкарана (butch, hoyden, virago). (various references)

Farsi		دخترپسروار. (various references)

Finnish		rasavilli (boisterous, mischief tomboy, wild). (various references)

German		wildfang (hoyden, little rascal, madcab, passage hawk, puck, scamp, wild child). (various references)

Greek		αγριοκόριτσο (hoyden, romp), αγοροκόριτσο (hoyden). (various references)

Hebrew		שובב� ית, � ער�" � מרצת. (various references)

Italian		maschiaccio (hoyden). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		跳ね�"り (rebounding, recovery, repercussions), 跳ね上がり者 (rash person), お転婆 , 御転婆 , � (bobby soxer, flapper). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		おて�"ば, きゃ�" (bobby soxer, flapper), はねかえり (rebounding, recovery, repercussions), はねあがりもの (rash person). (various references)

Manx		inneen firryn, caillin ayns breetchyn. (various references)

Pig Latin		omboytay

Portuguese		menina moleque. (various references)

Romanian		bãieţoi (hobbledehoy, hoyden). (various references)

Russian		сорванец (romp), девочка с мальчишескими ухватками. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		muškarača (virago). (various references)

Spanish		muchachota, muchacha hombruna, marimacha, chica poco femenina. (various references)

Swedish		yrhätta (hoyden, romp). (various references)

Turkish		erkek gibi kız, erkek fatma (hoyden). (various references)

Ukrainian		дівчисько-шибеник. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Tomboy

Derivations
	Words beginning with "tomboy": tomboyish, tomboyishness, tomboyishnesses, tomboys. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Tomboy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: goombay, Kombayi, Pombo, Tamblyn, timebo, tobay, tombe, tombi, Tombol, Tomio, Tommo, tomoo, Tomov, toyboy. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: Tomboy

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "b-m-o-o-t-y"
	-1 letter: boomy, booty.
	-2 letters: boom, boot, boyo, moot, toby, tomb, toom, toyo.
	-3 letters: boo, bot, boy, mob, moo, mot, oot, tom, too, toy, yob, yom.
	-4 letters: bo, by, mo, my, om, oy, to, yo.
	Words containing the letters "b-m-o-o-t-y"
	+1 letter: tomboys.
	+2 letters: bottomry, lobotomy.
	+3 letters: lobectomy, tomboyish.
	+4 letters: amoebocyte, phlebotomy.
	+5 letters: amoebocytes, combinatory, comfortably, embolectomy, thrombocyte.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.