Chavettes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Characterizing young women who exhibit a specific style often associated with working-class youth culture or a particular fashion and behavior
2. Referring to girls or young women who adopt aggressive and sometimes ostentatious traits linked to urban subcultures and a distinct social identity
3. Identifying females who are perceived as embodying certain stereotypes related to fashion, attitudes, and social status within a specific demographic group

Etymology: "Chavettes" is the plural of "chavette", a feminine counterpart to "chav", the British slang term for a young working-class person seen as brash or badly dressed. The feminine ending comes from French, where "-ette" (from Old French, itself from Latin "-ittus") marks a female or a diminutive, as in "majorette" or "usherette". English took the suffix and attached it to "chav" to name a girl or young woman fitting the same stereotype. The "-ette" ending is therefore the older and more interesting part of the word. Its Latin source was a diminutive suffix, and over centuries English speakers repurposed it for gender, so that a word built on a slang noun could be given a female form in the same way "actress" or "usherette" was made. The plural simply adds "-s" to this form.