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You are here: Home / Language / Where Did the Word “Bobbysoxers” For Teenage Girls Come From and What Does the Term Mean?

Where Did the Word “Bobbysoxers” For Teenage Girls Come From and What Does the Term Mean?

June 2, 2020 by Karen Hill

Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) was the first pop singer to experience primal teenage female screaming and tearful shrieking during a musical performance.

These legions of young women and girls were called bobbysoxers because they were the first generation to wear short or cutoff stockings, leaving their nubile bare legs to disappear beneath a shorter rather than longer skirt.

“Bobby socks” or “bobbed socks” first appeared in the 1930s and were so called because they had been cut short.

“Bobbed” meant “cut short” like the tail of a “bobtailed nag” or a woman’s “bobbed hair.”

Teenager was a new word during the time of the bobbysoxers.

Nubile had always meant “marriageable” until 1973 when it came to mean “sexually attractive.”

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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