Himbette?

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Thu Jul 26 20:18:40 UTC 2001


"Bimbo" and "bimbette" are in AHD4.

 From the Web (among many instances):

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99feb/wordimp.htm

<<A glamourpuss who exhibits too much S.A. and too little in the way of
character or brains may attract the disparaging label bimbo. That term is
now applied mainly to women -- as in the famous bimbo eruptions for which
an aide to Bill Clinton was ever on the watch back in 1992 -- but it
originated in the Italian bimbo, meaning a baby. Bimbo wound up being
applied to young women of the Prohibition era by way of the grammatically
ungendered English baby in constructions like jazz-baby -- a hot mama, in
other words. After years of relative dormancy, bimbo bounced back in the
early 1980s. The eighties also saw the birth of bimbette (a younger or
lesser bimbo). Himbo, the nineties term for a male bimbo, is approximately
as clever as the replacement of history with herstory. It has demonstrated
enough pizzazz for at least short-term viability.>>

"Himbette" is less common, but here's one instance from the Web:

http://www.91india.com/bollywood/interview_of_preity.htm

<<It's wrong to strive for perfection in a relationship. No one's perfect.
But I'd never fall for... what's the male equivalent of a bimbette?...ya, a
himbette.>>

-- Doug Wilson



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