noun🔥 Gen-Z slang

girlboss

an ambitious, self-driven woman (often ironic)

What it means

An ambitious, hustle-driven woman in charge of her career or life, though it's now used mostly ironically. Originally empowering, it can be a verb ('girlbossing') and is often part of the joke phrase 'gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss'.

Examples

  • She quit her job to start a candle company, total girlboss.
  • I'm gonna girlboss my way through this group project.
  • Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss, that's her whole personality.
  • Waking up at 5am to girlboss before everyone else, iconic.

Where it comes from

Coined by the 2014 book #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso, the term turned ironic by the early 2020s and went viral as part of the 'gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss' meme on TikTok and Twitter.

Related slang

#gatekeep

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