Old English · noun
cwen
Normalised cwēn
- Part of speech
- noun, feminine
- Declension
- strong i-stem
- IPA
- /kweːn/
- Syllables
- kweːn (1 syllable)
- Modern English
- queenking'swifemonarchrulingprincess
Meaning
-
queen (a ruling female monarch or a king's wife)
An. DCCCLV Hēr hǣþene men ǣrest on Sċeapiġġe ofer winter sǣtan...⁊ þȳ ilcan ġēare [Aþelwulf cing] ferde to Rōme mid myċelre weorðnesse ⁊ þǣr wæs XII mōnoð wuniġende, ⁊ him þā hāmweard fōr ⁊ him þā Carl Francna cing his dohtor ġēaf him tō cwēne, ⁊ æfter þām tō his lēodum cōm...
Year 855 In this year the heathens stayed on Sheppey over the winter for the first time...And in the same year [King Athelwulf] went to Rome with much honor, and stayed there for twelve months. And them he went home and King Carl [the Bald] of the Franks gave him his daughter as a queen, and after that Athelwulf returned to his people.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle -
princess (a king's daughter)
-
woman
-
wife
Declension
All forms (4)
Etymology
From earlier cwœ̄n ← *kwœ̄ni ← *kwōni ← *kwą̄ni, from Proto-West Germanic *kwāni (“woman, wife”), from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn. Cognate with Old Saxon quān, Old Norse kvæn, Gothic (qēns). The Indo-European root is also the source of Ancient Greek γυνή (gunḗ), Proto-Slavic *žena, and Old Irish ben.
Descendants
queen
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