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 fi ...

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 tit ...

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 playing cards, cards that use the French Suit (cards), suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three o ...

, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the

jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

. 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 Gr ...

which in turn outranks the jack. In the Spanish deck and some

Italian deck Playing cards (''carte da gioco'') have been in Italy since the late 14th century. Until the mid 19th century, Italy was composed of many smaller independent states which led to the development of various regional patterns of playing cards; "It ...

s, 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 Win ...

. 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 ...