adjective
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resembling or appropriate to a queen
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having the rank of queen
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of queenly
Explanation
If you have a queenly manner, you carry yourself like a queen (or maybe you are one!). Queenly things are fit for a queen, like that tiara you wear on special occasions. You could also call queenly things (or people) regal or aristocratic. Someone who walks with a queenly bearing holds herself proudly, with excellent posture. And if you go on a queenly vacation, it's pretty luxurious and fancy. The words queenly and queen come from an Old English root, cwen, which means both "female ruler of a state," but also simply "wife."
Vocabulary lists containing queenly
Scrabble: Words that Begin with Q
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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:
People name their children after her and tattoo their skin with her likeness: a queenly woman surrounded by sunbeams, her head bowed in prayer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
Ms. McQueen is splendid, Mr. Bean elevates the entire production and Connie Nielsen is an imperious Eleanor of Aquitaine, a woman with her own queenly agendas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
Then she tosses the cake in the garbage bag on the housekeeping trolley with a queenly flourish, all without breaking her stride to the elevator.
From Salon ● May 7, 2024
Regal, queenly and majestic can sometimes register as standoffish or — gasp — going all Hollywood.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 6, 2023
She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
They may even be queenlier now than they were in 2020; at times I thought they seemed over-primed by the time off.
From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2021
No dream is mine that does thee less than right: Albeit thy words be wild as warring waves, I know thee higher of heart than shame could smite And queenlier than thy queenship.
From Locrine: a tragedy by Algernon Charles Swinburne
The world is old, It hath sent here none queenlier.
From A Lover's Diary, Volume 2. by Gilbert Parker
Thou wast queenlier far Than the queenliest flower, More glorious than a star In a fairy bower.
From Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems by James Avis Bartley
His tales of her declare she condescends; Can share his fires, not always goads and rends: Moreover, quits a throne, and must enclose A queenlier gem than woman's wayside rose.
From Poems — Volume 3 by George Meredith
Love first chose, Then prayed—"No, lily-white—or, both provide;" And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed, And "lily-white"—the queenliest flower that blows.
From Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala by Sir Edwin Arnold
Thou wast queenlier far Than the queenliest flower, More glorious than a star In a fairy bower.
From Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems by James Avis Bartley
"I am a good prophet," he assured her, and now he let the suppressed merriment dance at will in his pupils, "but don't forget that a queen's queenliest necessity is—kindness."
From Destiny by Charles Neville Buck
But those who want that queenliest of flowers may get it for shillings at any time.
From About Orchids A Chat by Frederick Boyle
Could Music rescue thus from Soul's profound, Give feeling immortality by sound,436 Then were she queenliest of Arts!
From Browning's England A Study in English Influences in Browning by Helen Archibald Clarke
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.
