英和和英

語源

Borrowed from Irish cailín.

名詞

colleen (plural colleens)

1. (Ireland) A girl.

   Coordinate term: bouchaleen

2. (Ireland) A young single woman.
   • c. 1900, “Star of the County Down (traditional folk song)”:

     Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen \ And she smiled as she passed me by.

   • 1906 June–November, Max Pemberton, “The Diamond Ship. […]”, in Cassell’s Magazine, Illustrated, London; Paris; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Cassell and Company, Limited, →OCLC, page 101, columns 1–2:

     So here was Timothy McShanus deserting the baked meats, to say nothing of his convenient corner in the buffet, to go out and stare at a red shepherdess with picture books and maizypop to sell. And what kind of a colleen was it that he saw? […] Young as she was—and I supposed her to be about eighteen—her figure would have given her five years more according to our northern ideas; […]