English

Pippi Longstocking as portrayed by Inger Nilsson

Noun

Pippi Longstocking ‎(plural not attested)

1. A person, especially a girl or woman, with long or flamboyant red hair, especially in pigtails or parted down the middle, and prominent freckles.

   As soon as I entered the room, I knew that my pigtails were a mistake, and I winced at the calls of "Pippi Longstocking"!‎

   • 2007, Karen Robards, Ghost Moon, Random House:

     Little and skinny for ten years old, cursed with waist-length hair and freckles that all the kids teased made her look just like Pippi Longstocking, she had been, that day, the butt of jokes from the entire fifth grade.

   • 2009, Rachel Shteir, Gypsy: the Art of the Tease, Yale University Press, page 140:

     She has threaded rags through her hair, tying it in two Pippi Longstocking braids.

   • 2010, Laura DuPriest, Natural Beauty: Pamper Yourself with Salon Secrets at Home, Random House, page 15:

     If I turned around, you could see a bizarre array of silver clippies, and a "Pippi Longstocking" part down the middle.

   • 2011, Julia Watts, Finding H. F., Bella Books:

     Put her in pigtails and stick her finger in a light socket, and she’d be Pippi Longstocking.

   • 2012, Kate Bornstein, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology, and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today, Beacon Press:

     ... I was positively Pippi Longstocking, minus the pigtails.

2. A person, especially a girl or woman, given to headstrong, wild behaviour, flights of fancy, or irrepressible optimism.

   She strode to the head of the class, like a Pippi Longstocking in brunette, and demanded equal treatment for the other children.‎

   • 2002 October 23, Ella Taylor; Frida (reviewer), “Sex-mad and Self-obsessed”, in LA Weekly:

     Then we’re swept back to her school days, where we see her giggling like a regular Pippi Longstocking as she spies on Rivera (Alfred Molina) applying his creative juices to an artist’s model while being berated by his wife (Valeria Golino).

   • 2014, P. V. Lundqvist, The Counterfeit Father: A Tony Pandy Mystery, Stick Raven Press:

     You’re a regular Pippi Longstocking, you know that?

   • 2015, Patrice Vecchione, Step Into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life, Simon & Schuster, page 10:

     Have I discovered my inner Pippi Longstocking?

Synonyms

• (optimistic or fanciful girl, etc.): Pollyanna

Translations