Colleen Meaning
/kəˈliːn/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA girl.
nameA female given name from English or Irish.
Sentence Examples
Colleen is a popular Irish name.
Colleen was the main character's name.
The young colleen danced a traditional Irish jig at the festival.
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The young ____ from Ireland danced gracefully at the festival.
Word Origin & History
From the word colleen, from Irish cailín (“girl”), not used as a name in Ireland. Colleen can also be interpreted as a variant of Coleen, which was a product of marketing by the Hollywood film industry (to promote a new starlet in the 1920s).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Her name is spelled Coleen making her "Co" with a hard O and not Colleen by any stretch - I'm suspicious on her authority on the subject."
— 2007, Laurie Lindeen, Petal Pusher, Atria Books, →ISBN, page 137:
"Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen \ And she smiled as she passed me by."
— c. 1900, “Star of the County Down (traditional folk song)”:
"So here was Timothy McShanus deserting the baked meats, to say nothing of his convenient corner in the buffet, to go out and stare at a red shepherdess with picture books and maizypop to sell. And what kind of a colleen was it that he saw? […] Young as she was—and I supposed her to be about eighteen—her figure would have given her five years more according to our northern ideas; […]"
— 1906 June–November, Max Pemberton, “The Diamond Ship. […]”, in Cassell’s Magazine, Illustrated, London; Paris; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Cassell and Company, Limited, →OCLC, page 101, columns 1–2:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The young ____ from Ireland danced gracefully at the festival.