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Webster 1913 Edition
Quean
Quean
,Noun.
[Originally, a woman, AS.
cwene
; akin to OS. quena
, OHG. quena
, Icel. kona
, Goth qin[GREEK]
, and AS. cwén
, also to Gr. [GREEK] woman, wife, Skr. gnā
goddess. Cf. Queen
.] 1.
A woman; a young or unmarried woman; a girl.
[Obs. or Scot.]
Chaucer.
2.
A low woman; a wench; a slut.
“The dread of every scolding quean.” Gay.
Webster 1828 Edition
Quean
QUEAN
, n.A worthless woman; a slut; a strumpet. [Not in common use.]
Definition 2025
quean
quean
English
Alternative forms
Noun
quean (plural queans)
- A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute. [from 10th c.]
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III.2.1.ii:
- Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […].
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III.2.1.ii:
- (Scotland) A young woman, a girl; a daughter. [from 15th c.]
- 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 30:
- 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, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 30:
Derived terms
Scots
Etymology
From Old English cwene, from Proto-Germanic *kwenǭ (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn (“woman”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [kwin], [kwen], [kwəin]
Noun
quean (plural queans)