colleen
1 Americannoun
noun
noun
-
an Irish word for girl
-
an Irish girl
Etymology
Origin of colleen
1820–30; < Irish cailín, equivalent to caile girl, wench + -ín diminutive suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wilmington described O’Hara as “Hollywood’s ultimate fiery colleen, she has a classic chiseled Irish beauty and a thinly strapped temper that erupted smashingly into scathing tantrums or round-house rights.”
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 24, 2015
And the neighbours all pity the colleen so pretty,
From BBC • Apr. 2, 2015
The Hitch The inhabitants of a neighboring barren, windswept Irish island want parts in it, including the play’s misshapen title character and a sociopathic colleen named Slippy Helen.
From New York Times • Oct. 18, 2014
Upon any Irishman caught sporting with a colleen thus dressed, Senator Moore proposed to visit drastic punishment.
From Time Magazine Archive
Says I to the colleen: ‘What shall I do provided any more come, for all the meal is gone and there will be no more before the boys come home at night from the ballybetagh.’
From Wild Wales The People, Laguage & Scenery by Borrow, George Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
