the only fertile female in a colony of social insects such as bees and ants and termites; its function is to lay eggs
<noun.animal>
a female sovereign ruler
<noun.person>
the wife or widow of a king
<noun.person>
something personified as a woman who is considered the best or most important of her kind
<noun.person> Paris is the queen of cities the queen of ocean liners
a competitor who holds a preeminent position
<noun.person>
offensive term for an openly homosexual man
<noun.person>
one of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a queen
<noun.artifact>
(chess) the most powerful piece
<noun.artifact>
an especially large mole rat and the only member of a colony of naked mole rats to bear offspring which are sired by only a few males
<noun.animal>
female cat
<noun.animal> [ verb ]
promote to a queen, as of a pawn in chess
<verb.social>
become a queen
<verb.motion> her pawn queened
Queen \Queen\, n. [OE. quen, quene, queen, quean, AS. cw[=e]n wife, queen, woman; akin to OS. qu[=a]n wife, woman, Icel. kv[=a]n wife, queen, Goth. q[=e]ns. [root]221. See {Quean}.] 1. The wife of a king.
2. A woman who is the sovereign of a kingdom; a female monarch; as, Elizabeth, queen of England; Mary, queen of Scots.
In faith, and by the heaven's quene. --Chaucer.
3. A woman eminent in power or attractions; the highest of her kind; as, a queen in society; -- also used figuratively of cities, countries, etc. `` This queen of cities.'' `` Albion, queen of isles.'' --Cowper.
4. The fertile, or fully developed, female of social bees, ants, and termites.
5. (Chess) The most powerful, and except the king the most important, piece in a set of chessmen.
6. A playing card bearing the picture of a queen; as, the queen of spades.
{Queen apple}. [Cf. OE. quyne aple quince apple.] A kind of apple; a queening. ``Queen apples and red cherries.'' --Spenser.
{Queen bee} (Zo["o]l.), a female bee, especially the female of the honeybee. See {Honeybee}.
{Queen conch} (Zo["o]l.), a very large West Indian cameo conch ({Cassis cameo}). It is much used for making cameos.
{Queen consort}, the wife of a reigning king. --Blackstone.
{Queen dowager}, the widow of a king.
{Queen gold}, formerly a revenue of the queen consort of England, arising from gifts, fines, etc.
{Queen mother}, a queen dowager who is also mother of the reigning king or queen.
{Queen of May}. See {May queen}, under {May}.
{Queen of the meadow} (Bot.), a European herbaceous plant ({Spir[ae]a Ulmaria}). See {Meadowsweet}.
{Queen of the prairie} (Bot.), an American herb ({Spir[ae]a lobata}) with ample clusters of pale pink flowers.
{Queen pigeon} (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of very large and handsome crested ground pigeons of the genus {Goura}, native of New Guinea and the adjacent islands. They are mostly pale blue, or ash-blue, marked with white, and have a large occipital crest of spatulate feathers. Called also {crowned pigeon}, {goura}, and {Victoria pigeon}.
{Queen regent}, or {Queen regnant}, a queen reigning in her own right.
{Queen's Bench}. See {King's Bench}.
{Queen's counsel}, {Queen's evidence}. See {King's counsel}, {King's evidence}, under {King}.
{Queen's delight} (Bot.), an American plant ({Stillinqia sylvatica}) of the Spurge family, having an herbaceous stem and a perennial woody root.
{Queen's metal} (Metal.), an alloy somewhat resembling pewter or britannia, and consisting essentially of tin with a slight admixture of antimony, bismuth, and lead or copper.
{Queen's pigeon}. (Zo["o]l.) Same as {Queen pigeon}, above.
{Queen's ware}, glazed English earthenware of a cream color.
{Queen's yellow} (Old Chem.), a heavy yellow powder consisting of a basic mercuric sulphate; -- formerly called {turpetum minerale}, or {Turbith's mineral}.
Queen \Queen\, v. i. To act the part of a queen. --Shak.
Queen \Queen\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Queened}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Queening}.] (Chess.) To make a queen (or other piece, at the player's discretion) of by moving it to the eighth row; as, to queen a pawn.
It quoted him as saying his information for the story came from a politician with extremely good royal connections who had correctly tipped him the previous year that Princess Margaret, the queen's sister, would get a divorce.
Thousands cheered and people shouted "Long Live the King!" when Otto von Hapsburg and other members of the family left a church Monday after a Mass for his mother Zita, the last queen of Hungary.
But, suddenly, it becomes apparent that one of Jorge's pawns will queen.
The former queen, who walked with a cane, wore a black pants suit, black cap, black gloves and a bright red scarf.
Because the queen spends the bulk of her life laying eggs, corporate heads may object if she is described as the CEO of the hive.
The queen and her six attendants were chosen from about 700 applicants, based on their public speaking ability, poise, academic achievement and personality.
The law passed the House of Lords Tuesday and now awaits the formality of the queen's signature, said Bill Walker, a Scottish lawmaker for the ruling Conservative Party and sponsor of the bill.
In return for making a secret confession to his interrogators, he was spared punishment and public exposure, kept his job as the queen's art adviser and retired honorably in 1972.
One hundred years after a Naples chef presented the queen of Italy with a patriotic pizza, purists and politicians want to "copyright" the simple recipe for a genuine Neapolitan pie.
No British king or queen has met an Irish president.
The king (Stephen Markle) and the queen (Jennifer Harmon) are also first-rate.
Churchgoers may also remember Susa as the city of king Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and his seductive queen Esther.
Hotel queen Leona Helmsley will get an additional room paid for with taxes that only the little people pay.
Incorrectly deciding to keep my rooks connected, I waste time maneuvering my queen to the king file; it can still support the pawn thrust from there, but by then the ploy is too late, as I shortly find out.
The queen's sister, Princess Margaret, separated from Lord Snowdon in 1976 and they divorced two years later.
Leona Helmsley, the persnickety hotel queen quoted as saying "only the little people pay taxes," has been convicted of evading $1.2 million in income tax by charging personal expenses to her business empire.
Gaetano Rossi based the libretto on a tragedy by Voltaire. Semiramide, queen of Babylon, had a prince (Ramey) kill her husband 15 years before.
In a news release, Sheppard called Roberts a "fairy queen" in apparent reference to her support for Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's executive order banning state agencies from discriminating against homosexuals.
The queen praised the school as "second to none," though she sent her three sons to Gordonstoun in Scotland.
The king and queen arrived in Washington on Sunday to participate in events around the country marking the 350th anniversary of the first Swedish colony in America.
And compared with the scandals that beset some of their ancestors, the separation announced Thursday of the queen's daughter from Capt.
The queen, who played a central role in the good times, is now a key player in the bad.
Since then, multiple queen colonies have spread throughout Florida and are found all over the Southeast.
The queen flew to China in a BAe-146 in 1986.
"It's supposedly the thing the queen bee eats that makes her grow and gives her special strength," says Mr. Robles.
The palace said the queen made Reagan an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, an order established in 1725 that recognizes services to Britain.
The queen carries out the investiture of the honors at a later ceremony.
Among the Sainsbury bag-carriers the occasional shopping queen stood out - mane of hair, gold bangles, her decorator dancing attendance.
Her role in the upcoming film "Miss Firecracker," now playing in a few cities, is that of a wanna-be beauty queen, not a partisan crusader.
The newspaper said the prince is awaiting the queen's permission to be formally engaged.