Word.ws English Dictionary

turn queen's evidence

turn queen's evidence verb: of a person accused of a crime, to give evidence against one's accomplices in the hope of receiving a lighter punishment. Used when the monarch is female.

Verb

turn queen's evidence (third-person singular simple present turns queen's evidence, present participle turning queen's evidence, simple past and past participle turned queen's evidence)

  1. (UK) Of a person accused of a crime, to give evidence against one's accomplices in the hope of receiving a lighter punishment. Used when the monarch is female.

Forms of turn queen's evidence

third-person singular presentturns queen's evidence
present participleturning queen's evidence
past participleturned queen's evidence
pastturned queen's evidence

Questions about turn queen's evidence

What does turn queen's evidence mean?
Turn queen's evidence means of a person accused of a crime, to give evidence against one's accomplices in the hope of receiving a lighter punishment. Used when the monarch is female.
What part of speech is turn queen's evidence?
Turn queen's evidence is a verb.
What is the past tense of turn queen's evidence?
The past tense of turn queen's evidence is turned queen's evidence.

Words near turn queen's evidence in the dictionary

  1. turn out
  2. turn over
  3. turn over a new leaf
  4. turn over in one's grave
  5. turn pear-shaped
  6. turn queen's evidence
  7. turn round
  8. turn rusty
  9. turn shoe
  10. turn signal
  11. turn signals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turn queen's evidence (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:

Cite this entry: “turn queen's evidence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn_queen%27s_evidence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.