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Bimbo is a term that emerged in popular English language usage in the late 20th Century to describe an often attractive, yet stupid woman. Use of this term began as early as 1919.^[1] The 1929 silent film, Desert Nights, describes a cheap female crook as a bimbo. This word derives from the Italian bimbo, a word of masculine gender that means (male) baby or very young (male) child (its feminine equivalent is bimba). The 50’s song “Bimbo”, about a toddler, was one of the early hits for the popular American singer Jim Reeves. Its first usage in English was for stupid men; it now is understood to mean a woman unless modified as male bimbo, himbo, or mimbo. Some still prefer the explicitly female variant bimbette, which has also entered The American Heritage Dictionary. Others use bimbette for a younger bimbo, due to the suffix "-ette" signifying a smaller version as in French or Spanish "-ito/-ita" suffix.

A bimbo is not necessarily highly sexually attractive. Being a bimbo is a state of mind, and reflects a person who exaggerates the effort and value put into her physical attractiveness. She is often perceived to be shallowly focusing on her physical appearance and neglecting or even willfully stifling the development of other parts of her personality.

The archetype of a bimbo with sex appeal is much used as a stock character in comedies with sexual humor, an example being Christina Applegate’s character, Kelly Bundy, in Married... with Children. Alicia Silverstone’s character, Cher Horowitz, in Clueless is more accurately described as a valley girl, a similar archetype with more laughably unusual priorities and behaviors than are strictly derived from the bimbo themes of comical stupidity and sex appeal.

An older comedy archetype of perhaps more direct resemblance to the bimbo is the dumb blonde—for example, the giggling, naïve characters portrayed by such sultry actresses as Marilyn Monroe or, as she appeared on Laugh-In, Goldie Hawn. Humor depicting all blonde women as stupid is often considered sexist.

The word “himbo” has been coined to describe a man who, were he a woman, would be a bimbo. ^[2]

“Mimbo” has a similar meaning to “himbo”, being a portmanteau of “male” and “bimbo”. This was coined in the season five episode of Seinfeld The Stall as a phrase Jerry used to describe Elaine’s boyfriend Tony.

The word “Chimbo” is a slang term coined to describe a female cheerleader who is also seen as being a bimbo.^{[citation needed]}

1. ^ Etymonline.com
2. ^ Williams, Rachel. (July 7, 2006). PA News Bling, Himbos in dictionary, but unlikely to use one. (writing, “A himbo is an attractive but vacuous man, the male version of a bimbo” as indicated in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.)

• Dumb blonde
• Tchotchke
• Twink
• Valspeak
• Valley girl