colleen
1 Americannoun
noun
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
Miss Doreen would be Madam Shane: good luck to the winsome colleen!
From My Lords of Strogue Vol. III, (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Wingfield, Lewis
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.
