colleen
noun
an Irish girl.
colleen
1 American
[kol-een, ko-leen]
/ ˈkɒl in, kɒˈlin /
noun
Colleen
2
American
[kol-een, ko-leen]
/ ˈkɒl in, kɒˈlin /
noun
colleen
British
/ kɒˈliːn, ˈkɒliːn /
noun
-
an Irish word for girl
-
an Irish girl
Etymology
Origin of colleen
1820–30; < Irish cailín, equivalent to caile girl, wench + -ín diminutive suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wilmington described O’Hara as “Hollywood’s ultimate fiery colleen, she has a classic chiseled Irish beauty and a thinly strapped temper that erupted smashingly into scathing tantrums or round-house rights.”
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 24, 2015
And the neighbours all pity the colleen so pretty,
From BBC • Apr. 2, 2015
The Hitch The inhabitants of a neighboring barren, windswept Irish island want parts in it, including the play’s misshapen title character and a sociopathic colleen named Slippy Helen.
From New York Times • Oct. 18, 2014
Irish harpists remodeled Tristan along the general lines of a fighting Irishman and changed his princess into a pretty colleen.
From Time Magazine Archive
An English tourist accustomed to buy the coloured picture postcards with which the Germans obligingly supply our shops, would have recognised her at once as an Irish colleen.
From General John Regan by Birmingham, George A.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
