Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An often homeless girl who roams about the streets; an urchin.
  • noun A petite, charming girl or woman, especially one with a playful demeanor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a female street urchin
  • noun a mischievous, playful, elfish, pert girl or young woman
  • adjective having a boyish, mischievous charm; tomboyish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a homeless girl who roams the streets
  • noun a girl of impish appeal

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, feminine of gamin, gamin.]

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Examples

  • Even a 'gamine' (!) metropolitan poof like me finds the typical infants school to be a revoltingly feminised place: it brings out my inner caveman and I just want to run along the corridors swearing and farting and kicking things.

    No Blacks Allowed.....(?) Newmania 2007

  • Like most, I found the movie Amélie to be magical and delightful and inventive and wasted no time falling madly in love with the "gamine" Audrey Tautou, (as she is invariably referred).

    unknown title 2008

  • Tory Burch used comfy-looking flats and gamine heels.

    The New Neutral: a Rainbow Christina Binkley 2011

  • Her perpetual gamine frame and overly long legs placed her on the cover of fashion and beauty magazines worldwide.

    Louis Licari: Back to the Future Louis Licari 2011

  • It's a bit of a stretch to believe someone as fetching as Jess would need help in the dating marketplace, but her gamine awkwardness is awfully funny.

    Matt's Guide to Tuesday Night TV: New and Returning Shows 2011

  • The movie industry may have predisposed the public to think of Sabrina as little more than an adorable fashion plate -- a gamine Hepburn in Givenchy.

    Ford Theatre's 'Sabrina Fair' puts race, not class, center stage Celia Wren 2010

  • Her perpetual gamine frame and overly long legs placed her on the cover of fashion and beauty magazines worldwide.

    Louis Licari: Back to the Future Louis Licari 2011

  • Her perpetual gamine frame and overly long legs placed her on the cover of fashion and beauty magazines worldwide.

    Louis Licari: Back to the Future Louis Licari 2011

  • Her scandalously gamine wardrobe of men's blazers, jodphurs and tweed waistcoats was the germ of the suits made of jersey used for fisherman's underwear that built her empire.

    Damsels in His Dress Josh Patner 2010

  • This time, rising above the pages gushing about the gamine who starred in Roman Holiday, there was a link providing information about an attorney who was, at least for a time, based in Malta: Ms. Audrey Fino.

    In the Plex Steven Levy 2011

Comments

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  • Audrey Hepburn apparently epitomizes this adjective.

    July 24, 2007

  • And how.

    July 24, 2007

  • My wife came across this word while reading and asked me what it meant. I explained that it was a small rodent that was cultivate for its fur, like a sable. It fit the context, and life went on.

    March 19, 2008

  • Can this be used to mean prostitute or something of the manner? Looking at the definitions it seems like it might have that connotation, but I've never heard it used in context before.

    November 13, 2008

  • A stick thin girl who would look good in a pixie cut. :)

    Gamine is also an adjective meaning mischievous - gamine charm

    February 2, 2009

  • gamine charm -- like the Steelers

    February 2, 2009

  • Go.

    February 2, 2009

  • A young hallucinating gentleman, gamine, with pre-Raphaelite blond curls that would have given Robert Plant's a run for his money, injudiciously wandered away from his hallucinating friends and all but fell into my lap...Well. No pain felt he. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.

    March 18, 2012