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Glite Dictionary
queen of the May

queen of the May

1 9.6
A girl chosen to lead May Day celebrations wearing a crown of flowers
  • noun
  • UK
translation icon : reina de mayo
  • The tradition of crowning a queen of the May dates back centuries in this region.

Examples

  • Emily was crowned queen of the May at the festival.

  • Every year the village selects a queen of the May to lead the procession.

  • As queen of the May, she wore a crown of flowers and a flowing white dress.

  • The queen of the May wore a beautiful floral crown.

  • The school nominated Sarah as the queen of the May for the annual May Day celebration.

  • Dressed in a beautiful gown, Lily was crowned the queen of the May amidst cheers from her classmates.

  • As the queen of the May, Julia led the parade and participated in various traditional dances.

Synonyms

May queen
vsqueen of the May
  • UK
1 8.8

A girl chosen to lead a May Day festival and represent spring

is more about the crowning and public celebration during the festival

Surface Forms

queen of the May singular
queens of the May plural

Morphology

queen + of + the + May

The phrase is compositionally built from 'queen' + 'of the' + 'May' and thus directly signals a queen associated with the month/May Day festivities; a learner who knows 'queen' and 'May' can infer it denotes the person chosen to preside over May celebrations. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish reina de mayo, French reine de mai), so the basic meaning is immediately derivable even if detailed cultural context requires extra knowledge.

Etymology

The expression queen of the May comes from old May Day festivals where a young girl was chosen, crowned with flowers and dressed to be the queen of May. So, the phrase means the girl picked to 'lead' the May Day celebration.