quean

• quine (Scotland)
• quene, queane (obsolete)

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”).

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”). More at queen.

• IPA^(key): /kwiːn/
• Rhymes: -iːn
• Homophone: queen

quean (plural queans)

1. (archaic) A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute. [from 10th c.]
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970, partition III, section 2, member 1, subsection ii:

     Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […]

   • 1936: Like the Phoenix by Anthony Bertram

     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, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie--did actually solicit me, did actually say 'coming home to-night, dearie' and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman.

   • 1921, original c. 1353, first English translation 1620, Giovanni Boccaccio, J.M. Rigg (translator), The Decameron, page 307:

     So ended Lauretta her song, to which all hearkened attentively, though not all interpreted it alike. Some were inclined to give it a moral after the Milanese fashion, to wit, that a good porker was better than a pretty quean.

2. (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.

• cuckquean
• cot-quean

• quena

• quine (Doric)

From Middle English quene, from Old English cwene, from Proto-West Germanic *kwenā, from Proto-Germanic *kwenǭ (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn (“woman”).

• IPA^(key): /kwin/, /kwen/, /kwəin/

quean (plural queans)

1. young woman, girl
2. daughter
3. maidservant
4. female sweetheart
5. (Shetland) A ram incapable of procreation, a hermaphrodite sheep.