queen bee
Americannoun
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a fertile female bee.
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a woman who is in a favored or preeminent position.
noun
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the fertile female bee in a hive
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informal a woman in a position of dominance or ascendancy over her peers or associates
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of queen bee
First recorded in 1600–10
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.
"It was a real cluster of bees, and probably there was a queen bee right in the middle," the urban beekeeper told France Info.
From BBC • Apr. 28, 2026
According to Cranston, the stunt team was able to cover the actor in bees by using pheromones from the queen bee.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 10, 2026
Now we’re on Vegas World; now we’re on Jurassic Planet; now we’re on a planet ruled by a gigantic queen bee.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026
And Swift, with her lengthy track record of queen bee energy, can't be pleased with the implication that she's just the Drogon to someone else's Daenerys.
From Salon • Jun. 6, 2025
The actual work was done by the servants, of course, but the queen bee of all this busyness was indisputably Lady Constance.
From "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling" by Maryrose Wood
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.
