a female sovereign or monarch.
the wife or consort of a king.
Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.
a male homosexual, especially one who is flamboyantly campy.
a playing card bearing a picture of a queen.
Entomology. a fertile female ant, bee, termite, or wasp.
a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter Q.
verb (used without object)
to reign as queen.
to behave in an imperious or pretentious manner (usually followed by it ).
Chess. to become promoted to a queen.


queenless, adjective
queenlike, adjective
underqueen, noun
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World English Dictionary
queen (kwiːn)
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.  a.  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
 b.  (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
9.  chess to promote (a pawn) to a queen when it reaches the eighth rank
10.  (tr) to crown as queen
11.  informal (intr) (of a gay man) to flaunt one's homosexuality
12.  (intr) to reign as queen
13.  informal (often foll by over) queen it to behave in an overbearing manner
[Old English cwēn; related to Old Saxon quān wife, Old Norse kvæn, Gothic qēns wife]

Queen (kwiːn)
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

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Word Origin & History

O.E. cwen "queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife," from P.Gmc. *kwoeniz, ablaut variant of *kwenon (source of quean), from PIE *gwen- "woman, wife" supposedly originally "honored woman" (cf. Greek gyné "a woman, a wife;" Gaelic span class="foreign">bean
"woman;" Skt. janis "a woman," gná "wife of a god, a goddess;" Avestan jainish "wife;" Armenian kin "woman;" O.C.S. zena, O.Pruss. genna "woman;" Goth. qino "a woman, wife; qéns "a queen"). English seems unique in I.E. in having a word for "queen" that is not a fem. derivative of the one for "king." The original sense seems to have been "wife," specialized by O.E. to "wife of a king." Used of chess piece from 1440, of playing card from 1575. Of bees from 1609 (until late 17c., they generally were thought to be kings; cf. "Henry V," I.ii). Meaning "male homosexual" (especially a feminine and ostentatious one) first recorded 1924; probably an alteration of quean in this sense. Queens, the New York borough, was named for Catherine of Braganza, queen of English King Charles II. Queen Anne first used 1878 for "style characteristic of the time of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland," who reigned 1702-14.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Bible Dictionary

Queen definition


Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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