Word.ws English Dictionary

primadonna

primadonna is the alternative form of prima donna.

Meaning of prima donna

Noun

prima donna (plural prima donnas or prime donne or (nonstandard) primae donnae)

  1. (opera) The principal female singer or the leading lady.
    • The truth is, the inhabitants of that languid and luxurious city wanted some little variety; and the minister ... supported a favourite actress in the range of first-rate characters in the Opera—supported her against the united musical opinion of Naples. One night she sang worse than ever; and the...1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 255–256
  2. (derogatory, informal) A person who considers themselves much more important than others, has high expectations of others and becomes angry when their demands are not met.
    • I've had enough of watching scenes / With schizophrenic, egocentric, paranoiac, prima-donnas1971, John Lennon, “Gimme Some Truth”, in Imagine
    Synonyms:
    diva, Miss Piggy

Forms of primadonna

pluralprimadonnas

Questions about primadonna

What is primadonna the alternative form of?
Primadonna is the alternative form of prima donna.

Words near primadonna in the dictionary

  1. primacord
  2. primacords
  3. primacy
  4. primacy effect
  5. primacy effects
  6. primadonna
  7. primadonnas
  8. primae donnae
  9. primae noctis
  10. primaeval
  11. primaeval forest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: primadonna (page history and authors); prima donna (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: “primadonna.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/primadonna. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.