Quern vs Quean - What's the difference?
quern | quean |
A mill for grinding corn, especially a hand-mill made of two circular stones
* 1978 , Robert Nye, Merlin ,
* 2005 , Anne Crone, Ewan Campbell, A Crannog of the First Millennium, AD: Excavations by Jack Scott at Loch Gloshan, Argyll, 1960 ,
* 2009 , Charles D. Hockensmith, The Millstone Industry ,
To grind; to use a quern .
* 1979 , , 2011,
* 2000 , Tina Tuohy, 9: Long Handled Weaving Combs: Problems Determining the Gender of Tool-Maker and Tool-User'', Moira Donald, Linda Hurcombe (editors), ''Gender and Material Culture in Archaeological Perspective ,
* 2009 , , Unleaving'', ''Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales ,
* 2011 , Rachel Pope, Ian Ralston, 17: Approaching Sex and Status in Iron Age Britain with Reference to the Nearer Continent'', Tom Moore, Thomas Hugh Moore, X. L. Armada (editors), ''Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide ,
A woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.
*, III.2.1.ii:
*:Rahab, that harlot, began to be a professed quean at ten years of age […].
(Scotland) A young woman, a girl; a daughter.
*1932 , (Lewis Grassic Gibbon), Sunset Song'', Polygon 2006 (''A Scots Quair ), p. 30:
*:Forbye the two queans' there was the son, John Gordon, as coarse a devil as you'd meet, he'd already had two-three ' queans in trouble and him but barely eighteen years old.
As nouns the difference between quern and quean
is that quern is a group of four while quean is a woman, now especially an impudent or disreputable woman; a prostitute.quern
English
Alternative forms
* (l) * (l)Noun
(en noun)- She is shaking in ingredients from various small bottles and querns produced from the pockets of her robes, and from the drawer in the wooden table.
page 100,
- MacKie has noted that querns that were in use in Scotland up to the present day were about 450mm—600mm in diameter and that the lower stone was completely perforated to make it adjustable (MacKie 1987, 5).
page 212,
- Not surprisingly, different cultures discovered the suitability of various rock types for manufacturing querns and millstones.
Verb
(en verb)unnumbered page,
- He could almost set aside the longing for Eyjan that ever querned within him—almost—in this place so utterly sundered from everything of hers.
page 141,
- For women he thought these should include combing, spinning, querning , leather and fur-working and be associated with finds of beads, bracelets and perforated teeth.
page 262,
- Beyond this now lay only chaos and a querning sea. Time's millstones, grinding bones for bread.
page 401,
- From the osteology, a supposed link between squatting facets and prehistoric women—and by extension the interpretation that women were engaged in querning activity—is not demonstrated for the Iron Age: of the thirteen with the complaint in Deal, Kent, 62 per cent were male (Anderson 1995: table 29).