Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. The wife or widow of a king.
- n. A woman sovereign.
- n. Something having eminence or supremacy in a given domain and personified as a woman: Paris is regarded as the queen of cities.
- n. Games The most powerful chess piece, able to move in any direction over any number of empty squares in a straight line.
- n. Games A playing card bearing the figure of a queen, ranking above the jack and below the king.
- n. The fertile, fully developed female in a colony of social bees, ants, or termites.
- n. A mature female cat, especially one kept for breeding purposes.
- n. Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a homosexual man.
- transitive v. To make (a woman) a queen.
- transitive v. Games To raise (a pawn) to queen in chess.
- intransitive v. Games To become a queen in chess.
- idiom queen it To act like a queen; domineer: queens it over the whole family.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A female monarch. Example: Queen Victoria
- n. The wife or widow of a king. Example: Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
- n. The most powerful piece, able to move any number of spaces horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- n. A playing card with the picture of a queen on its face, the twelfth card in a given suit.
- n. A powerful or forceful female person.
- n. An effeminate male homosexual. See drag queen.
- n. A reproductive female animal in a hive, such as an ant, bee, termite or wasp.
- n. An adult female cat valued for breeding. See tom.
- v. to make a queen
- v. to promote a pawn, usually to a queen.
- v. To sit on the face of (a partner) to receive oral sex.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The wife of a king.
- n. A woman who is the sovereign of a kingdom; a female monarch
- n. A woman eminent in power or attractions; the highest of her kind
- n. The fertile, or fully developed, female of social bees, ants, and termites.
- n. The most powerful, and except the king the most important, piece in a set of chessmen.
- n. A playing card bearing the picture of a queen.
- intransitive v. To act the part of a queen.
- intransitive v. To make a queen (or other piece, at the player's discretion) of by moving it to the eighth row.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To play the queen; act the part or character of a queen; domineer: with an indefinite it.
- In chess, to make a queen of: said of a pawn on its reaching the eighth square.
- In apiculture, to supply with a queen; introduce a queen to: said of a colony of bees.
- n. The consort of a king.
- n. A woman who is the sovereign of a realm; a female sovereign.
- n. Figuratively, a woman who is chief or preeminent among others; one who presides: as, queen of beauty; queen of the May (see Mayqueen).
- n. Hence, anything personified as chief or greatest, when considered as possessing female attributes.
- n. In entomology, a queen bee or queen ant.
- n. A playing-card on which a queen is depicted.
- n. In chess, the piece which is by far the most powerful of all for attack. See chess. Abbreviated Q.
- n. A variety of roofing-slate, measuring 3 feet long and 2 feet wide. Compare duchess, 2.
- n. Among Roman Catholics, a title given to the Virgin Mary.
- n. Same as quin.
- n. Same as queen-wasp.
- n. A female eat. In modern catteries the name is given only to female cats used for careful and scientific breeding. Also called queen-cat.
- n. The female of a termite or white ant. See king, 6.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a competitor who holds a preeminent position
- n. one of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a queen
- n. offensive term for an openly homosexual man
- v. become a queen
- n. something personified as a woman who is considered the best or most important of her kind
- n. (chess) the most powerful piece
- n. a female sovereign ruler
- n. the only fertile female in a colony of social insects such as bees and ants and termites; its function is to lay eggs
- n. female cat
- n. the wife or widow of a king
- n. an especially large mole rat and the only member of a colony of naked mole rats to bear offspring which are sired by only a few males
- v. promote to a queen, as of a pawn in chess
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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The fact that the queen is actually the designer alter-ego and the hero her girlfriend just add more to the mix.
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I will sit this one out if the queen is anywhere that ticket.
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Grief decides the queen is the key to the problems and that Deasy has to be struck by a dead pig as a scoundrel and blackguard.
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There's a religious organization called a church, of which the queen is the head, and it seems to involve monotheistic goddess worship.
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B & B on the queen is a luxury they should appreciate, especially the way their every right is catered for.
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O'BRIEN: Were you surprised to see this, what you call the queen bee behavior, the sort of just nasty, mean behavior, in children as young as four or maybe even three?
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M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen
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M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen Victoria?
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Today, we see that the bees are still maintaining what I call queen cell Number 2, but have not yet capped it.
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The 'queen' is a hopelessly deranged, but happy lunatic.
Prolagus commented on the word queen
Me and the Major don't see eye to eye on a
Number of things, he'll take a guy like me
And put him in the army
Cause the Queen's own army makes a man of you.
(Me and the Major, by Belle and Sebastian)
January 1, 2009
vanishedone commented on the word queen
Perhaps there are countries where the word most immediately conjures up thoughts of insects, but I don't live in one of those.
I think the rook is an odder chessman, though.
November 30, 2007
seanahan commented on the word queen
In chess, the queen is one of the chessmen, very strange.
February 21, 2007