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:
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
High and flinty, with a bone-deep coal-country drawl that refused to fade even as she ascended to a queenly position in the Nashville star system, her singing sliced through polished arrangements like a sharpened blade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2022
“Making Soap” shows a queenly woman on a thronelike chair, overlooking a bubbling kettle on an open fire.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2022
Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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
Rounder, and queenlier, and more fair Her form grew, and her golden hair Fell yearly richer at the master's side.
From Among the Millet and Other Poems by Archibald Lampman
The world is old, It hath sent here none queenlier.
From A Lover's Diary, Complete by Gilbert Parker
She drew herself up like a queen, but only that she might look queenlier for his sake, and, bending, kissed his brow, and whispered back his vows.
From A Mountain Woman by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
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 opening notes of a festival To jubilate the reign of the summer Beauteous, queenliest, rosy-robed comer.
From The Dales of Arcady by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe
"Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung, An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young; A dirge for her—the doubly dead, in that she died so young."
From Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough' by George A. (George Alfred) Lawrence
"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
"Sable—fur, you know, the richest, softest, queenliest fur there is."
From The Miller Of Old Church by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
Such is Hermione, in her "proud submission," her "dignified obedience," with her Roman firmness and integrity of soul, heroic in strength, heroic in gentleness, the queenliest of women, the womanliest of queens.
From Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. With An Historical Sketch Of The Origin And Growth Of The Drama In England by Henry Norman Hudson
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.
