[f. QUEEN sb. + -SHIP.]
1. The dignity or office of a queen.
1536. Anne Boleyn, in Ld. Herbert, Hen. VIII. (1683), 447. Neither did I … forget my self in my exaltation, or received Queenship.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., to Julia (1869), 28. For thy queen-ship on thy head is set Of flowers a sweet commingled coronet.
1848. Faber, Spir. Confer. (1861), 146. What name can we give to a queenship so grand?
1876. J. Ellis, Caesar in Egypt, 83.
| Hast thou not saved my State, and counsell’d me, | |
| And given me Queenship? |
2. The personality of a queen; (her) majesty.
1603. Drayton, Heroical Ep., xiii. 107. Y faith her Queeneship little Rest should take.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, V. xxii. (1737), 101. We … thank’d her Queenship.
1767. Woman of Fashion, I. 91. It was my Ladyship, I presume, that put her in mind of Cleopatra, no Disparagement to her Queenship.
