コギャル
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Japanese
[edit]Etymology
[edit]First appeared in the early 1990s, especially after the term’s popularisation in the 1993 Late-Night TV Special “Za kogyaru naito” (The Kogal Night), though other theories regarding the term's derivation exist.[1]
A likely derivation is attributed to teenage girls dressing as ボディコン (Bodikon women) at discothéques in the early 1990s, therefore being a slang abbreviation to indicate the many young women who was underage in these discos.
- From 高校生 (kōkōsei, “high-school student”) + ギャル (gyaru, “gal, young woman”, originally referring to someone not a minor).
- From 格好 (kakkō, “appearance, seeming”) + ギャル (gyaru).
Another possible derivation is attributed to the mass media.
The gyaru portion in all of these is a borrowing from English gal.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]- a teenage girl participating in the Kogal subculture in Japan, which is a form of the ギャル (Gyaru) fashion subculture and peaked in the mid-1990s. Kogals were troped by the Japanese media as having tendencies towards being obsessively trend-conscious.