queen
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "queen", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "queen" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "queen" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
queen is aEnglishnoun. It means: The wife, consort, or widow of a king. Pronounced /kwiːn/. It ranks #1,466 in English word frequency. Often confused with quiet and quest.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | queen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kwiːn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,466 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for queen is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kwiːn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,466 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for queen, with forms such as "qeuen", "qqueen", and "queenn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "quiet", "quest", "Quinn", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English quene, queen, cwen, from Old English cwēn (“queen”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwāni, from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷénh₂s (“woman”). Cognate with Scots queen, wheen (“queen”), Old Saxon quān ("wife"; … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is queen, spelled Q-U-E-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The wife, consort, or widow of a king.
- 2A female monarch.
- 3A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.
- 4A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.
- 5A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.
- 6A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.
- 7A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.
- 8Something regarded as the greatest of its kind or as having pre-eminence or power comparable to that of a queen over a given area.
- 9Referring to one of several items used in tabletop games:
- 10Referring to one of several items used in tabletop games:
- 11Referring to one of several items used in tabletop games:
- 12A reproductive female insect in a hive, such as an ant, bee, termite or wasp.
- 13A type of flatfish, specifically the lemon sole.
- 14A queen apple.
- 15A queen scallop.
- 16Ellipsis of queen post.
- 17A type of large roofing slate.
- 18A homosexual man, especially one who is effeminate or flaming.
- 19An adult female cat capable of breeding.
- 20Ellipsis of queen olive.
- 21Ellipsis of drag queen.
- 22Pertaining to a queen-size bed or queen-size bedding.
- 23A monarch butterfly (Danaus spp., especially Danaus gilippus).
Etymology
From Middle English quene, queen, cwen, from Old English cwēn (“queen”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwāni, from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷénh₂s (“woman”). Cognate with Scots queen, wheen (“queen”), Old Saxon quān ("wife"; > Middle Low German quene (“elderly woman”)), Dutch kween (“woman past child-bearing age”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Norwegian kvinne (“woman”), Danish kvinde (“woman”), Icelandic kvon (“wife”), Gothic 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”), Norwegian dialectal kvån (“wife”). Related to and possibly merged with and/or absorbed some senses of English quean, from Middle English quene, from Old English cwene (“woman; female serf, quean”), see quean. Generally eclipsed non-native Middle English regina (“queen”), borrowed from Latin rēgīna (“queen”) (see Modern English Regina). Doublet of quean and gyne. In reference to insects, by analogy with the obsolete term king, which it took over from starting in the 1600s, when they were discovered to be female.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: qeuen,qqueen,queenn,quen,quene,uqeen
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for queen
Misspelling Variants of "queen"
Frequency rank: #1,466 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter Q in our English index: