queen

¹ American  

[kween] / kwin /

noun

1. a female sovereign or monarch.

2. the wife or consort of a king.

3. a woman, or something personified as a woman, that is foremost or preeminent in any respect.

   a movie queen; a beauty queen; Athens, the queen of the Aegean.

4. 1. Slang: Usually Disparaging and Offensive. a term used to refer to a gay man, especially one who is flamboyantly campy or effeminate.

   2. drag queen.

5. a playing card bearing a picture of a queen.

6. Chess. the most powerful piece of either color, moved across any number of empty squares in any direction.

7. Entomology. a fertile female ant, bee, termite, or wasp.

8. a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter Q.

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verb (used without object)

1. to reign as queen.

2. to behave in an imperious or pretentious manner (usually followed byit ).

3. Chess. to become promoted to a queen.

Queen ² American  

[kween] / kwin /

noun

1. Ellery, joint pen name of Manfred Bennington Lee and Frederick Dannay.

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queen ¹ British  

/ kwiːn /

noun

1. a female sovereign who is the official ruler or head of state

2. the wife or widow of a king

3. a woman or a thing personified as a woman considered the best or most important of her kind

   a beauty queen

   the queen of ocean liners

4. slang an effeminate male homosexual

5. 1. the only fertile female in a colony of social insects, such as bees, ants, and termites, from the eggs of which the entire colony develops

   2. ( as modifier )

      a queen bee

6. an adult female cat

7. one of four playing cards in a pack, one for each suit, bearing the picture of a queen

8. a chess piece, theoretically the most powerful piece, able to move in a straight line in any direction or diagonally, over any number of squares

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verb

1. chess to promote (a pawn) to a queen when it reaches the eighth rank

2. (tr) to crown as queen

3. informal (intr) (of a gay man) to flaunt one's homosexuality

4. (intr) to reign as queen

5. informal (often foll by over) to behave in an overbearing manner

Queen ² British  

/ kwiːn /

noun

1. Ellery (ˈɛlərɪ). pseudonym of Frederic Dannay (1905–82) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–71), US co-authors of detective novels featuring a sleuth also called Ellery Queen

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Sensitive Note

The term queen is usually used with disparaging intent and perceived as insulting when in reference to a gay man, especially one considered to be effeminate or flamboyant. However, within the gay community, it is sometimes used in a friendly, teasing, or facetious manner, and can also be a positive term of self-reference.

Other Word Forms

• queenless adjective
• queenlike adjective
• underqueen noun

Etymology

Origin of queen

First recorded before 900; Middle English quene, quen, Old English cwēn “woman, queen”; cognate with Old Saxon quān, Old Norse kvān, Gothic qēns, from unattested Germanic kwēni-; akin to Old Irish ben, Greek gynḗ woman, Russian zhená, Sanskrit jani “wife”

Example Sentences

One of her original creations, the faded cabaret queen Lola Heatherton, armored herself in plastered-on wigs and stage finery, façades obscuring the jittery desperation of a woman hanging on by the quicks of her fingernails.

From Salon

Two years before Princess Elizabeth became queen, she felt the special sting of having details of her family’s private life splashed out in print for all the world to see.

From The Wall Street Journal

“And I think it was about a queen who wants her daughter rescued. But the queen was wicked.”

From Literature

The crown princess is Norway's future queen, and the decision will come as a blow to her reputation.

From BBC

She’s the queen of the code switch, moving between English and pidgin with ease.

From Literature

Related Words

• monarch
• ruler