May queen

American

noun

a girl or young woman crowned with flowers and honored as queen in the festivities of May Day.

May queen British

noun

a girl chosen, esp for her beauty, to preside over May-Day celebrations

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

Social life, whether it was the crowning of a May queen, the eulogy to a dead president, or an all-night dance, could be held nowhere else.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

A picnic was planned to Dover's Grove, and the romantic little girls had insisted upon a May queen, and Lucy was unanimously elected.

From The Copy-Cat and Other Stories by Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins

A May queen was decreed "too old"; a May masque too much trouble.

From Betty Wales, Sophomore by Warde, Margaret

You are not going in the character of a May queen, Alice, that you should almost hide your beautiful hair in ribbons and flowers.

From After a Shadow and Other Stories by Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)

Patty came next, and surely a fairer May queen never went to her coronation.

From Patty's Suitors by Wells, Carolyn

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023