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The adjective little-girl-lost means: resembling (that of) a small girl who has lost her way.
The adjective little-boy-lost means: resembling (that of) a small boy who has lost his way.
The adjective little-girl-lost occurs, for example, in a review of Blonde (2022), a U.S. biopic of the U.S. actress Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jeane Mortenson – 1926-1962)—review by Paul Whitington, published in the Irish Independent (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Saturday 30th July 2022 [page 12, column 3]:
In the years since her death, it’s become commonplace to portray Marilyn as a hapless victim of the Hollywood flim-flam machine, a rabbit in the headlamps. But while she did have a little-girl-lost aspect to her personality that underpinned her onscreen sexuality, Monroe operated under a persona she had mostly created herself.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the adjectives little-girl-lost and little-boy-lost that I have found:
1-: From a text, dated Philadelphia, Tuesday 8th December 1931, in which Elizabeth Harris Dahl explained how she met Elisha Kent Kane, charged with the murder of his wife—text published in The Scranton Times (Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA) of Tuesday 8th December 1931 [page 23, column 6]:
It was at an officer’s dance, in November, I believe, when I found my eyes doing their usual bit of roving around, that I had a feeling somebody was watching me. I turned my head and instantly I was struck by the melancholy, wistful, little-boy-lost look of the young officer who was gazing at me, a tall, young man who later I learned was Elisha Kent Kane.
2-: From Riders West, by the U.S. author Ernest Haycox (1899-1950), published in The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri, USA) of Wednesday 8th August 1934 [chapter 6, page 21, column 4]:
She had the letter to the lawyer in her pocket for mailing, and that was an excuse. But below the excuse was a prompting so unlike her, so contrary to her self-certainty that she could not understand it and would not logically examine it. Something like a little-girl-lost emotion. Something more. More or less aloud, she said: “Apparently there is a penalty for living alone. Why should I ride to him? I must not do it again.”
3-: From Rich Girl—Poor Girl, a novel by the U.S. author Faith Baldwin (1893-1978), published in The Boston Daily Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Saturday 27th March 1937 [chapter 8, page 18, column 1]—Context: Young Dr. Jonathan Kimber has taken over the practice of old Dr. Alan Ballard; the latter’s pretty niece, Rose, has invited Jonathan to dinner:
He [i.e., Jonathan] spoke gravely, and Rose felt her throat thicken, for no adequate reason. She asked herself severely, “What’s the matter with you, getting emotional over a tall dark stranger with a nice deep voice and a sort of absurd little-boy-lost look in brown eyes—not that I can see his eyes at the moment.”
4-: From the column Front Row, by Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart, published in the Des Moines Tribune (Des Moines, Iowa, USA) of Thursday 15th December 1938 [page 4-A, column 4]:
I suppose the audience was about equally divided in liking or disliking the little-girl-lost manner with which Edna St. Vincent Millay took the stage at Hoyt Sherman place Wednesday afternoon.
I’m on the yes side: We get to see only too few persons looking and feeling like a Melisande these days.
5-: From Milady Indiscreet, by a novel by the Canadian author Louis Arthur Cunningham (1900-1954), published in The Star Weekly (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) of Friday 30th June 1939 [chapter 10–Supplement: page 7, column 4]:
“I thought he would come to me anyway. Then he met you. Well, he will come to me in the end. I don’t think you have much to give him—not much more than you’ve already given. You’ll soon come to the end of that. A man like Adam won’t always be satisfied with those nice blue eyes of yours and that “little-girl-lost” manner. He’ll want more. He’ll want a son, a strong son, and you won’t give him one. Your kind don’t go in for that sort of thing unless you’re sure of an army of nurses, governesses and the like to look after your young. You wouldn’t tie yourself down.”
6-: From the column Columeandering, by Stanley Johnson, published in The Garland Times (Garland, Utah, USA) of Friday 22nd November 1940 [page 5, column 3]:
The recipient of criticism is obliged to accept it as impersonally as it is given. Of the film stars I have seen or met, no one has been more friendly than Jimmy Stewart; and he would not take it as a personal affront that I think his quizzical “little-boy-lost” screen manner is becoming a bit wearing.
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