meisie, noun

/ˈmeɪsi/
Forms:
meisje, meisjieShow more Formerly also meisje, meisjie, mysie.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch meisje girl.
Especially among, or with reference to Afrikaans-speakers:
1.
a. A girl or young woman. Also diminutive form meisietjie/ˈmeɪsiki/ [see -ie]. See also meisiekind.
1838 J.E. Alexander Exped. into Int. I. 130The vrouws and meisjes were accordingly at work day and night..preparing biltong and dried meat, and baking bread for their men.
1870 in A.M.L. Robinson Sel. Articles from Cape Monthly Mag. (1978) 18A most rotund Boer meisje, of athletic structure, about as broad, indeed, as she was tall.
1896 H.A. Bryden Tales of S. Afr. 183Now Kate..was in no mind to suffer herself to rust dully through existence like some Boer meisje.
1904 Argus Christmas Annual (Cape Colony Sect.) 19The gay proteas.., flaunting their apparel like a meisje in her best pink blouse.
1908 F.C. Slater Sunburnt South 21When she was young..she was the prettiest meisje you could wish to meet in a long day’s ride.
1919 J. Buchan Mr. Standfast 287One night I told him about Mary. ‘She will be a happy mysie,’ he said, ‘but you will need to be very clever with her’.
1919 R.Y. Stormberg With Love from Gwenno 62Ben has started blazing a fresh wooing trail — the neighbouring meisjes have been heartlessly neglected of late.
1924 S.G. Millin God’s Step-Children 72He will not have you. He does not want you...He said he would not think of marrying a brown meisje — a brown girl.
1930 Outspan 25 July 63Said others, shaking their heads ‘A good wife he lost when he ran off with that Kaapse meisje and sold the land of his fathers to strangers’.
1946 E. Rosenthal General De Wet 14She was a typical Boer meisie — healthy, kindly and with no other ideas of a home than those of a farm-house.
1959 J. Packer High Roof 196Her parents had been upset when she married a Malay, for..when a Coloured meisie married into a Moslem family she was lost to her own.
1967 E.M. Slatter My Leaves Are Green 147‘Good-bye, my meisie,’ she said as Anna-Marie clung to her hand.
1983 Cape Times 9 Dec. 16The meisie who shaves her legs so smooth, her knees look like ostrich eggs.
1984 Drum July 35His woman,..a naive, innocent and blissfully ignorant Afrikaner meisietjie.
1988 J. Khumalo in Pace May 32As the Kaapse klonkies and meisies do their thing on stage one is hit by a twinge of nostalgia for the colourful places like Hanover Street, Allie’s High class Tailors, Jet Set Hairdressing Saloon and the Seven Steps of Stone.
1991 Sunday Times 7 Apr. 26At top level, the okes (and the meisies) all throw so straight they keep cancelling each other out.
b. As a term of address to a girl or young woman.
1905 P. Gibbon Vrouw Grobelaar 139I will ask the girl once more if she will come out...Meisje, will you not come out? I ask you to.
c1964 M. Jabour in New S. Afr. Writing 21‘Cheeky’, Ouma glared, ‘you’re getting too big for your boots, meisie’.
2. Elliptical for boeremeisie (sense 1).
1896 [see sense 1 a].
1920 R.Y. Stormberg Mrs Pieter de Bruyn 25Neither was there any incongruity in his making persistent love to a be-kappied unilingual meisje who was anything but polite to him.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 94The girls who provided tasteful items in the programme in the intervals..were a refreshing novelty in Afrikander life, not shy like the backveld ‘meisje’.
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 168What of the girls, including meisjes of unimpeachable Voortrekker ancestry, cavorting on public tennis-courts in curt divided-skirts, or even in (very) shorts.
1970 Sunday Times 15 Nov. 7Hannatjie (a meisie of the eighteen-thirties).
1984 Sunday Times 8 July 6Zola Budd..has..been telling all who ask..that she is a runner, not a politician..a meisie from die plaas who misses her pets.
1989 Style Feb. 41On the Cover of Voelvry a Trekker meisie jumps for liberated joy above the Joeys skyline.
3. A girlfriend or wife.
1972 P. O’Byrne on Radio South Africa 25 Sept.A little bird tells me that you haven’t managed to find yourself a meisie yet — you’re still a bachelor, right?
1975 Sunday Times 10 Aug. 7I need a meisie to warm the cockles of my heart. Also, I need a son to carry on the business when I hang up my hatchet.
1990 Sunday Times 11 Feb. 9Mrs A—, whom Mr B— called his ‘meisie’, said the two intended getting married and planned to buy a farm in the Karoo.
1992 C. Leonard in Sunday Times 16 Feb. 6Fanie L— and his ‘meisie’, Anet M—.
A girl or young woman. Also diminutive form meisietjie/ˈmeɪsiki/ [see -ie].
As a term of address to a girl or young woman.
Elliptical for boeremeisie (sense 1).
A girlfriend or wife.
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meidjie, nounn.meisiekind, nounn.
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