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.
A queen bee reaches maturity in about 16 days, while worker bees require roughly 21 days.
From Science Daily • Jun. 23, 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
He said swarming typically occurred when a surplus queen bee leaves a hive with part of the colony to set up a new one somewhere else.
From BBC • Jun. 16, 2025
It wasn’t clear if the hive was simply following a queen bee that attached herself to the engine, he added.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 9, 2024
Mrs. Choi is the queen bee of Autumn’s well-off neighborhood, and her Southern twang is like her designer shoes—something she never forgets to put on before she leaves the house.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
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.
