Quean
Pronunciation
- IPA: /kwiËn/
- Homophones: queen
Origin
From Middle English quene ("young, robust woman"), from Old English cwene ("woman, female serf"), from Proto-Germanic *kwenÇ ("woman"), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn ("woman"). Cognate with Dutch kween ("a barren woman, a barren cow"), Low German quene ("barren cow, heifer"), German dialectal Kan, Chan ("woman, wife"), Swedish kvinna ("woman"), Icelandic kona ("woman"), Gothic ðŒµðŒ¹ðŒ½ð‰ (qino, "female, woman"), ðŒµðŒ´ðŒ½ðƒ (qens, "wife"). More at queen.
Full definition of quean
Noun
quean
(plural queans)- A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute. from 10th c.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III.2.1.ii:Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age ….
- (Scotland) A young woman, a girl; a daughter. from 15th c.
- 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 30: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.