quean
/kwiːn/
quean noun: a woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
Noun
quean (plural queans)
- A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
- Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […]1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition III...
- However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.’s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep...1936, Anthony Bertram, Like the Phoenix
- A young woman, a girl; a daughter.
- Forbye the two queans there was the son, John Gordon, as coarse a devil as you’d meet, he’d already had two–three queans in trouble and him but barely eighteen years old.1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 30
quean meaning in Urdu
quean in Urdu
- quean
- آچھال چھکا āchāl chakkā
Forms of quean
| plural | queans |
|---|---|
| alternative Scotland | quine |
| alternative form (obsolete) | quene |
| alternative form (obsolete) | queane |
Origin of quean
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. Cognate with Dutch kween (“a barren woman, a barren cow”), Low German quene (“barren cow, heifer”), German Kone (“wife”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Icelandic kona (“woman”), Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌽𐍉 (qinō, “woman”), 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”).
Words formed from quean
Words that rhyme with quean
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- glean
- between
- byzantine
- canteen
- greene
- preen
- Racine
- careen
- intervene
- lean
- wean
- Christine
- obscene
- routine
- skene
- spleen
- submarine
- cuisine
- gasoline
- irene
- red bean
- serene
- -ene
- baleen
- demean
- eleventeen
- fascine
- gombeen
- latrine
- pristine
- Qazvin
- sheen
- tangerine
- unclean
- unseen
- vaccine
- amine
- aquamarine
- Beane
- beseen
- bottine
- chopine
- Enigma machine
- Eugene
- gene
- in between
- internecine
- jean
Questions about quean
- What does quean mean?
- Quean means a woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
- What is quean in Urdu?
- Quean in Urdu is آچھال چھکا (āchāl chakkā). See Quean meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is quean?
- Quean is a noun.
- How do you pronounce quean?
- Quean is pronounced /kwiːn/.
- What is the plural of quean?
- The plural of quean is queans.
Words near quean in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quean (page history and authors); آچھال چھکا (Urdu) (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)-Sapaa-quean.wav.
Cite this entry: “quean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.