The queen is a

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a ...

with a picture of a queen on it. In many European languages, the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ...

and queen begin with the same letter so the latter is often called ''dame'' (lady) or variations thereof. In

French playing cards French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...

, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the jack. In

tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...

decks, it outranks the

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

which in turn outranks the jack. In the

Spanish deck Spanish-suited playing cards or Spanish-suited cards have four suits, and a deck is usually made up of 40 or 48 cards (or even 50 by including two jokers). It is categorized as a Latin-suited deck and has strong similarities with the Italian- ...

and some Italian decks, the Queen does not exist and the Knight appears in them instead, with the same role and value. In several card games, including the middle eastern Trex and French Barbu, the queen is a major card to avoid taking, with each queen taken inflicting a penalty on the player. Similarly, in Hearts, the queen of spades is to be avoided, and is called a variety of unsavoury names. In the Paris pattern, each court card is identified as a particular historical or mythological personage as follows:

Cultural references

Regarding the anonymous nursery rhyme, " The Queen of Hearts" (published 1782), Katherine Elwes Thomas claims, in ''The Real Personage of Mother Goose'', that the Queen of Hearts was based on

Elizabeth of Bohemia Elizabeth Stuart (19 August 159613 February 1662) was Electress of the Palatinate and briefly Queen of Bohemia as the wife of Frederick V of the Palatinate. Since her husband's reign in Bohemia lasted for just one winter, she is called the Wi ...

. Benham, in his book ''Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets'', notes that French

s from the mid-17th century have Judith from the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

as the Queen of Hearts. See also: Queen of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

References

{{Authority control

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...