Dictionary

quean en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /kwiːn/

Etymology

From Middle English quene (“young, robust woman”), from Old English cwene (“woman, female serf”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwenā, from Proto-Germanic *kwenǭ (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn (“woman”). Doublet of gyne and queen. Cognate with Dutch kween (“a barren woman, a barren cow”), Low German quene (“barren cow, heifer”), German Kone (“wife”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Icelandic kona (“woman”), Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌽𐍉 (qinō, “woman”), 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”).

Meanings

1. (archaic) A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
   • However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.’s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie—did actually solicit me, did actually say ‘coming home to-night, dearie’ and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman. 1936, Anthony Bertram, Like the Phoenix:
   • So ended Lauretta her song, to which all hearkened attentively, though not all interpreted it alike. Some were inclined to give it a moral after the Milanese fashion, to wit, that a good porker was better than a pretty quean. 1921, original c. 1353, first English translation 1620, Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by J.M. Rigg, The Decameron, page 307:
   • Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […] 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition III, section 2, member 1, subsection ii:
2. (Scotland) A young woman, a girl; a daughter.
   • Forbye the two queans there was the son, John Gordon, as coarse a devil as you’d meet, he’d already had two–three queans in trouble and him but barely eighteen years old. 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 30:

Forms

Deriveds

cot-quean · cuckquean · queanish · queanie