plural queens
1
a
: the wife or widow of a king
b
: the wife or widow of a tribal chief
2
a
: a female monarch
b
: a female chieftain
3
a
: a woman eminent in rank, power, or attractions
a movie queen
b
: a goddess or a thing personified as female and having supremacy in a specified realm
c
: an attractive girl or woman
especially
: a beauty contest winner
4
: the most privileged piece of each color in a set of chessmen having the power to move in any direction across any number of unoccupied squares
5
: a playing card marked with a stylized figure of a queen
6
: the fertile fully developed female of social bees, wasps, ants, and termites whose function is to lay eggs
7
: a mature female cat kept especially for breeding
8
slang, often disparaging
: a gay man
especially
: an effeminate one
9
queened; queening; queens
1
: to act like a queen
especially
: to put on airs
—usually used with it
queens it over her friends
2
: to become a queen in chess
the pawn queens
: to promote (a pawn) to a queen in chess
Examples of queen in a Sentence
Noun
She was crowned queen of England.
the reign of Queen Elizabeth
the king and his queen
the queen of the blues
She was voted queen of the prom.
This ship is the queen of all the ocean liners.
Recent Examples on the Web
Jay Stahl, USA Today, 29 Aug. 2025
The Solaire comes with up to 50 precise firmness settings on both sides for queen or larger sizes.
—Yelena Moroz Alpert, Architectural Digest, 29 Aug. 2025
Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 22 Aug. 2025
Sitting down with IndieWire, smack in the middle of their getting ready process for World of Wonder’s FYC Pride Event on June 6 in Los Angeles, Season 17 queens Onya Nurve and Jewels Sparkles said the key to harnessing that legacy was having fun.
—Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 5 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for queen
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
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Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
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Noun
Cate Blanchett has long been the queen of outfit repeating in Hollywood, and she's done it again!
—Jay Stahl, USA Today, 29 Aug. 2025
The Solaire comes with up to 50 precise firmness settings on both sides for queen or larger sizes.
—Yelena Moroz Alpert, Architectural Digest, 29 Aug. 2025
Verb
The pair then queen out from different parts of the house.
—Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 22 Aug. 2025
Sitting down with IndieWire, smack in the middle of their getting ready process for World of Wonder’s FYC Pride Event on June 6 in Los Angeles, Season 17 queens Onya Nurve and Jewels Sparkles said the key to harnessing that legacy was having fun.
—Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 5 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for queen
Cite this Entry
“Queen.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/queen. Accessed 4 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
queen
1 of 2 noun1
: the wife or widow of a king
2
: a woman who rules a kingdom in her own right
3
a
: a woman of supreme rank, power, or attractiveness
a society queen
b
: something thought of as female and being at the top in a particular field
queen of the ocean liners
4
: the most powerful piece in the game of chess
5
: a playing card bearing the figure of a queen
6
: the fertile fully developed female of social bees, ants, and termites whose purpose is to lay eggs
queen
2 of 2 verb1
: to act like a queen
especially
: put on airs
2
: to become or promote to a queen in chess
Etymology
Noun
Old English cwēn "woman, wife, queen"
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