Bird:
- (Brit.) a girl or young woman, esp one's girlfriend (Collins Dict. )
According to Etymonline, bird:
also :
- As early as 1300, bird was used for ‘girl’, but this was probably owing to confusion with another similar middle English word, burde, which also meant ‘young woman’. The usage crops up from time to time in later centuries, clearly as an independent metaphorical application, but there does not really seem to be an unbroken chain of occurrences leading up to the sudden explosion in the use of bird for ‘young woman’ in the 20th century.
(www.dictionarycentral.com)
Modern usage of bird meaning girl appears to be unrelated to the old Middle Ages meaning. Etymonline dates it back precisely to 1915.
- What is the modern origin of bird meaning young woman?
- In what context did they start to use it at the beginning of the 20th century?