(a) A pre-eminent female noble, queen; also fig.; (b) the wife of a king, an emperor, a pharoah, or an emir; a queen consort; (c) nimen (haven, wedden) to ~, of a king: to take (a woman) to be wife and queen; yeven (nimen) to ~, give (a king a woman) to be wife and queen; corounen to ~, crown (a woman) as queen; (d) a queen reigning in her own right, queen regnant; also, a king's widow having sovereign authority; (e) the widow of a king, a queen dowager; queen mother; (f) a woman of the nobility; wife of a duke; (g) somer ~, ?a queen of a summer festival, ?a May queen.

(a) In phrases and titles: ~ auguste (candace, guenore, etc.); argante (lavine, margarite, etc.) the ~; (b) ~ of, queen of (a realm, country, the world, people, etc.); ~ of fraunce, etc.; (c) in cpds. & combs.: ~ gold, quenes gold, a revenue granted the queen consort of England, derived either from the crown's demesne or from a portion of payments to the crown for particular grants or franchises; ~ halle, Queen's College, Oxford; quenes cloth, ?a kind of cloth; quenes college, Queen's College, Cambridge.

A queen in the supernatural realm: (a) the Virgin Mary; (b) one of the female elect in heaven as the bride of Christ; (c) fig. an epithet for a female religious; (d) a pagan goddess.

Fig.: (a) As a term of endearment; min hertes (lives) ~; (b) the supreme example of a thing or of a type of person; a model of a particular virtue, paragon; (c) a personification of a vice or virtue.

Chess The queen.

(a) In surname; (b) in place names [see Smith PNElem.1.121-2].