fried fish

A trusted term for an adolescent girl since the early 20th century. The word originally comes from the fishing Latin of the British Isles: A fried fish there is a fish that the fisherman throws back into the sea from the net because it is too young or too skinny to eat. Since the late 1950s, young people who are neither fish nor flesh, i.e. no longer children and not yet adults, have been referred to as teenagers across the sexes. Fried fish is only available in stick form in the freezer.

Source: Lexicon of Endangered Words | Bodo Mrozek