bint

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic بِنْت (bint, “girl, daughter”), from Proto-Semitic *bint-, used to denote a patronym. The term entered the British lexicon during the occupation of Egypt at the end of the 19th century, where it was adopted by British soldiers to mean "girlfriend" or "bit on the side". Its register varies from that of the harsher bitch to being affectionate, the latter more commonly associated with the West Midlands. The term was used in British armed forces and the London area synonymously with bird in its slang usage (and sometimes brass) from at least the 1950s. (In the Tyneside shipping industry, particularly in Laygate, in South Shields, the term may have been adopted earlier, from the Yemeni community which had existed there since the 1890s.)

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