quean

American  

[kween] / kwin /

noun

1. Archaic. an overly forward, impudent woman; shrew; hussy.

2. Archaic. a prostitute.

3. British Dialect. Sometimes quine a girl or young woman, especially a robust one.

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quean British  

/ kwiːn /

noun

1. archaic

   1. a boisterous, impudent, or disreputable woman

   2. a prostitute; whore

2. a young unmarried woman or girl

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Other Word Forms

• queanish
  adjective
• queanlike
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of quean

First recorded before 1000; Middle English quene, Old English cwene; cognate with Middle Dutch quene, kone, Old Saxon, Old High German quena, Gothic qino, from unattested Germanic kwenōn-; akin to Old English cwēn “woman, queen” ( see queen)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

quean

Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting, extravagant quean, And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.

From Familiar Quotations by Bartlett, John

"Did I know Kate Happer?" replied the widow; "as well as the beggar knows his dish—a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain maybe twenty years syne."

From The Monastery by Scott, Walter, Sir

But the other night comes a Highland quean of a lass, and she flashes, God kens what, out at the eastmost window of Mrs. MacPhail's house, that's the superior tenement.

From The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2 by Scott, Walter, Sir

"Whisky is gude eneugh for her," muttered Cuddie; "ane wadna hae thought that gude meal was sae scant amang them, when the quean threw sae muckle gude kail-brose scalding het about my lugs."

From Old Mortality, Volume 2. by Scott, Walter, Sir

Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are —Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged—search near and far!

From Browning's England A Study in English Influences in Browning by Clarke, Helen Archibald

Related Words

• tramp
• whore