Link Centre Dictionary

queen

UK/kwiːn/ US/kʰw̥iːn/ common slang us
noun (10) verb (2)

noun

1.

the only fertile female in a colony of social insects such as bees and ants and termites; its function is to lay eggs

2.
3.

the wife or widow of a king

4.

something personified as a woman who is considered the best or most important of her kind

  • “Paris is the queen of cities”
  • “the queen of ocean liners”
5.
6.
7.

one of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a queen

8.

(chess) the most powerful piece

9.

especially large and only member of a colony of naked mole rats to bear offspring sired by only a few males

10.

female cat

Synonyms

verb

1.

promote to a queen, as of a pawn in chess

2.

become a queen

  • “her pawn queened”

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • bean queen
  • beauty queen
  • bio queen
  • black queen cell virus
  • butch queen
  • calico queen
  • chili queen
  • chocolate queen
  • queen out
  • queening square
  • queening stool

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

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Parts

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.