quean
/kwiːn/noun
quean is spelled Q-U-E-A-N: 5 letters. It appears about once in every 83 million words in written English, the 290,185th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, quean means “A young woman, a girl; a daughter” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of quean is queans.
How many letters and syllables are in quean?
| Letters | 5: Q-U-E-A-N |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 83 million words; the 290,185th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is quean?
Quean appears about once in every 83 million words in written English, the 290,185th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce quean?
- /kwiːn/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-quean.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with quean
Sounds like: queen (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with quean?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as quean.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: quena.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of quean
- queans plural
- quine
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does quean mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
archaicA woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
- 2
ScotlandA young woman, a girl; a daughter.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does quean come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).