Bimbo is a term that emerge in popular English language usage in the early 20th Century to describe an often attractive, yet unintelligent woman. The usage of this term began in the United States as early as 1919. 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, because the suffix "-ette" signifies a smaller version as in French or Spanish "-ito/-ita" suffix.