The word lesbian dates back at least to 1732 and lesbianism
appears in the 1870 Oxford English Dictionary meaning sexual
orientation rather than a reference to Sappho and inhabitants of
Lesbos. Lesbian as an adjective is in the 1890 Oxford English
Dictionary and as a noun by 1925. Until the early twentieth
century lesbian was interchangeable with Sapphist. An updated
view on this wider definition has to do with the girl crush as
written about by Stephanie Rosenbloom in The New York Times.
Rosenbloom defines a girl crush as "that fervent infatuation
that one heterosexual woman develops for another woman who may
seem impossibly sophisticated, gifted, beautiful or
accomplished." Such girl crushes may trigger the same kind of
feelings involved in a romance; and although not sexual in
nature, these feelings may sway relationship dynamics if the
object of the crush learns about them. This broadening of the
meaning for lesbian as any woman who bonds with another woman
became known as woman identified woman. However,