Word.ws English Dictionary

Kathleen Mavourneen

/ˌkæθliːn məˈvɔːniːn/

Kathleen Mavourneen noun: indefinite; which may not have an end for years, if ever.

Noun

Kathleen Mavourneen

  1. (attributive) indefinite; which may not have an end for years, if ever
    • There is a sort of loan with which I have been made familiar that might be called a Kathleen Mavourneen loan — it may be for a year and it may be forever, but the promises made by the Huguenots were for a year and were forever and were redeemed every day.1888, Chauncey M. Depew, in a speech published in Orations, Addresses and Speeches in 1910 by John Denison Champlin (editor)
    • And now, thought I, as I recovered Alf's saddle and bridle, heaven grant that that parting may be a Kathleen Mavourneen one; and let me have some other class of difficulty to deal with next time.1903, Joseph Furphy, Such is Life: Being Certain Extracts from the Diary of Tom Collins

Examples of Kathleen Mavourneen in a sentence

  • [I...] thank the Prime Minister for his remarks, which were very clear; but it does sound very much to me like a Kathleen Mavourneen proposition.1952, Debates: Official Report, volume 5, Canada's House of Commons:
  • She earned extra money when she could and in her third year had a ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ loan arranged through the registrar. ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’?1981, Elsie Locke, Student at the Gates:

Origin of Kathleen Mavourneen

With reference to a popular Irish ballad, Kathleen Mavourneen, which includes the line “It may be for years, and it may be forever.”

Questions about Kathleen Mavourneen

What does Kathleen Mavourneen mean?
Kathleen Mavourneen means indefinite; which may not have an end for years, if ever.
How do you use Kathleen Mavourneen in a sentence?
[I...] thank the Prime Minister for his remarks, which were very clear; but it does sound very much to me like a Kathleen Mavourneen proposition.
What part of speech is Kathleen Mavourneen?
Kathleen Mavourneen is a noun.
How do you pronounce Kathleen Mavourneen?
Kathleen Mavourneen is pronounced /ˌkæθliːn məˈvɔːniːn/.

Words near Kathleen Mavourneen in the dictionary

  1. kathismata
  2. kathisophobia
  3. kathlaniid
  4. kathlaniids
  5. Kathleen
  6. Kathleen Mavourneen
  7. Kathman
  8. Kathmandu
  9. Kathmans
  10. KathNiel
  11. kathodal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Kathleen Mavourneen (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.

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