Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

redskirt

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: red-skirt
IPA

13

Scrabble Score

8

Letters

2

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

An unimportant or expendable female character, especially one introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril faced by important characters.

Slang

Example Sentences

"Wasn't there that episode where the aliens turned everyone into little blocks of styrofoam, and one of the aliens turned a redskirt and a redshirt into cubes and crumbled one of them? And then Scotty got really drunk. I seem to recall that the redskirt bought it that time."

Etymology

From red + skirt. Patterned after redshirt, which derived from the tendency for male security officers, who wore red shirts, to die on episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Female crew members wore minidresses, but only one red-uniformed female character was killed during the series' run, in the episode "By Any Other Name."

Usage

Slang

Inflected Forms

redskirts (plural)

Frequently Paired Words

redshirt

Questions

What does redskirt mean?: An unimportant or expendable female character, especially one introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril faced by important characters.
Where does redskirt come from?: From red + skirt. Patterned after redshirt, which derived from the tendency for male security officers, who wore red shirts, to die on episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Female crew members wore minidresses, but only one red-uniformed female character was killed during the series' run, in the episode "By Any Other Name."

How to pronounce redskirt

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