queen it

present singular third person queens it · participle present queening it · participle past queened it · past queened it

1. To behave like a queen; to be superior or conceited.

   This dream of mine— / Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, / But milk my ewes, and weep.

   c. 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act 4, scene 4

   4 more examples

   But while she was with the Morels she queened it. She sat and let Annie or Paul wait on her as if they were her servants.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   She had thought of herself living in a nice house in Hampstead or Chiswick, the beautiful mysterious Oriental princess who had married a commoner, who was not above preparing special dishes - exotic and spicy - for her guests, but who otherwise queened it over a household of stolid British servants.

   1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 467

   Soon the ogress, fierce and bloodthirsty, she who for more than a hundred years had queened it in the depths, saw that a man - a queer being of the upperworld - had sunk to her realm.

   1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 36

   Most of the fashionable notabilities were to be seen there, and as she had queened it over the stage, so with her formidable presence and resounding tones, she queened it over London society for a couple of decades.

   1972, Gordon Mackenzie, Marylebone: Great City North of Oxford Street

   Synonyms: lord it