queen
/kwiːn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms queens queening queened queene quene queyne
- noun The wife, consort, or widow of a king. “The divorced king was looking for a new queen.”
- noun A female monarch.
- noun (Christianity) The Virgin Mary (especially in formulations such as Queen of Heaven, Queen of Glory).
- noun An excellent woman.
- noun A woman pre-eminent in a particular group or field.
- noun (slang, originally US) An attractive woman; a female partner in a romantic relationship.
- noun A girl or woman chosen to preside in an honorary or ceremonial manner over a specified festivity or occasion, as May Queen, Homecoming Queen, prom queen, pearly queen. “My mother was queen of the St. Patrick's Day parade when she was 19.”
- noun Something regarded as the greatest of its kind or as having pre-eminence or power comparable to that of a queen over a given area.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To act the part of a queen; to behave imperiously; to queen it.
- verb (transitive) To make a queen or (figuratively) to give the status of a queen.
- verb (chess) To promote a pawn to a queen.
- verb (beekeeping) To be the queen bee of a colony.
- verb (beekeeping) To provide with a new queen bee.
- verb (BDSM, slang, transitive, usually of a woman) To sit on a person’s face to receive oral sex, typically while straddling the person’s head.
- noun A title used before the personal name of a queen. “Queen Elizabeth II”
- noun (World War II era, joint US/RAF) radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter Q.
- proper noun In Commonwealth realms, the personification of the Crown, particularly in legal matters.
- proper noun A surname transferred from the nickname, originating as a nickname.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Eddy County, New Mexico, United States, named after the Queen Ranch.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, United States.
Synonyms
queen consort Regina queen regnant goddess advocatrix Blessed Virgin Blessed Virgin Mary Christotokos lady Madonna Mother of God Mother of Mercy Our Lady Our Lady of Sorrows Queen of Heaven Saint Mary Star of the Sea Theotokos Virgin Mary honey female monarch king world-beater fagot faggot fag fairy nance pansy queer
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English quene, queen, cwen, from Old English cwēn (“queen”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwāni, from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz (“wife, woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷénh₂s (“woman”).
Cognate with Scots queen, wheen (“queen”), Old Saxon quān ("wife"; > Middle Low German quene (“elderly woman”)), Dutch kween (“woman past child-bearing age”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk kvinne (“woman”), Danish kvinde (“woman”), Icelandic kvon (“wife”), Gothic 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”), Norwegian dialectal kvån (“wife”). Related to and possibly merged with and/or absorbed some senses of English quean, from Middle English quene, from Old English cwene (“woman; female serf, quean”), see quean. Generally eclipsed non-native Middle English regina (“queen”), borrowed from Latin rēgīna (“queen”) (see Modern English Regina). Doublet of quean and gyne.
In reference to insects, by analogy with the obsolete term king, which it took over from starting in the 1600s, when they were discovered to be female.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The wife of a king.
- noun A woman who is the sovereign of a kingdom; a female monarch; as, Elizabeth, queen of England; Mary, queen of Scots.
- verb To act the part of a queen. Shak.
- verb To make a queen (or other piece, at the player's discretion) of by moving it to the eighth row; as, to queen a pawn.
Etymology [OE. quen, quene, queen, quean, AS. cwen wife, queen, woman; akin to OS. quan wife, woman, Icel. kvan wife, queen, Goth. qens. sq. root221. See Quean.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “queen”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details