kanto girl

The story

1. Tagalog · borrowed fromkanto“corner, especially of two streets”
2. English todaykanto girl

From kanto boy, but the latter term was replaced with girl as a female equivalent, whereas the former term was originally from Japanese 官庁(かんちょう) (kanchō, “government office”), borrowed in the Philippines during WW2 according to Potet (2016), but it was eventually replaced with Tagalog kanto (“corner, especially of two streets”), which was reinterpreted to refer to an "office corner".

Words from the same roots