#10451
The word bimbo derives itself from the Italian bimbo,[2] derived from bambino, a masculine-gender term that means " (male) baby" or "young (male) child" (the feminine form of the Italian word is bimba). Use of this term began in the United States as early as 1919, and was a slang word used to describe an unintelligent[3] or brutish[4] man.
It was not until the 1920s that the term bimbo first began to be associated with females. In 1920, composer Frank Crumit recorded "My Little Bimbo Down on the Bamboo Isle",[5] in which the term "bimbo" is used to describe an island girl of questionable virtue. The 1929 silent film Desert Nights describes a wealthy female crook as a bimbo and in The Broadway Melody, an angry Bessie Love calls a chorus girl a bimbo. The first use of its female meaning cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1929, from the scholarly journal American Speech, where the definition was given simply as "a woman".
An unintelligent man can be referred to as a "himbo" or "mimbo" (a male bimbo), a backformation of bimbo.[2]