Word.ws English Dictionary

concubines

/ˈkɑŋkjəbaɪnz/

concubines is the plural of concubine.

Meaning of concubine

Noun

concubine (plural concubines)

  1. A sexual partner, especially a woman, to whom one is not or cannot be married.
  2. A woman who lives with a man, but who is not a wife.
    • And that is more than I will yield unto: / I know I am too mean to be your queen, / And yet too good to be your concubine.c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  3. (historical) A slave-girl or woman, kept for instance in a harem, who is held for sexual service.
    • He ſhall be made a chaſte and luſtleſſe Eunuch,
      And in my Sarell tend my Concubines:c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    odalisque

Questions about concubines

What is concubines the plural of?
Concubines is the plural of concubine.
How do you pronounce concubines?
Concubines is pronounced /ˈkɑŋkjəbaɪnz/ (US).

Words near concubines in the dictionary

  1. concubinary
  2. concubinate
  3. concubinates
  4. concubinatus
  5. concubine
  6. concubines
  7. concubinious
  8. concubinous
  9. concubitancy
  10. concubitant
  11. conculcate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: concubines (page history and authors); concubine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-concubines.wav.

Cite this entry: “concubines.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/concubines. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.