match girl
Young fire vendor
A match girl is a girl or young woman who sells matches on the street, a figure associated with 19th-century urban poverty.
The term evokes Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Little Match Girl," about a freezing child who lights her matches for warmth and dies on a cold night.
The image has become shorthand for pitiable, Dickensian poverty.
- matchstickFriction-lit fire starter
- flameBurning gas made visible
- coldLow temperature state
- povertySevere lack of resources
- street urchinDestitute child living outdoors
snow · shivering · barefoot · Victorian · streetcorner · Andersen · fairytale · happy ending · frozen · hunger · visions · grandmother · warmth · winter · rags · cobblestones · lantern · Christmas
- Andersen TalesThe Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Wild Swans, The Nightingale
- Victorian Jobschimney sweep, milliner, housemaid, blacksmith, cobbler
- street childrenurchin, waif, gamin, guttersnipe, ragamuffin
social class/wealth
match girlheiress
Female wealth recipient
princess · debutante · aristocrat · noblewoman · lady of leisure
match, girl, matches, matched, matching, matchless, matchmaker, matchmaking, girls