Karen
1 Americannoun
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a group of people of eastern and southern Myanmar (Burma).
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one of these people.
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the language of the Karen, a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan family.
adjective
noun
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Also Karin a first name, form of Katherine.
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Informal: Disparaging.
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a white, usually middle-class woman who is rude, demanding, and aggressive toward other people, particularly customer service workers.
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a person acting in an aggressive, entitled, rude way.
He went full Karen on the poor store manager and threatened to get her fired.
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noun
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a member of a Thai people of Myanmar
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the language of this people, probably related to Thai and belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
Neighbor Karen Estes watched over a fence with her Golden retriever, Honey.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
“This is absolutely devastating,” read a statement from Mayor Karen Bass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
Soon after, Home Affairs Committee Chair Dame Karen Bradley said the government was right to introduce digital ID but had botched the launch.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Jeremy Stein and Karen Dynan, both Harvard professors, have written more favorably about the Fed’s large-balance-sheet policy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
“Yes, sir,” Ben yelled, sighting Matt and Karen tiptoeing down the stairs, “here come three hundred crack troops from the emperor’s own regiment.”
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
On one side are so-called trail Karens, who monitor online web cameras and question why the forest service isn’t ticketing “ignorant and selfish” rule breakers who are hiking the mountain anyway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
Another thing we wanted to do was if we are taking about Karens or Stop and Frisk, that we have to show multiple, multiple, multiple instances.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2023
Karens for Hire, which includes two other part-time advocates and a lawyer on retainer, has received more than 2,300 requests for help since it launched last spring.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 26, 2022
She was a caricature of a matriarch, but brought complexity and nuance to a type that is usually relegated to sketch comedy, two-dimensional walk-ons or viral videos of monstrous Karens.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2022
The Karens, however, told him something that excited his curiosity.
From Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines by Moore, Henry Charles
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.
