Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The wife of King Arthur and lover of Lancelot according to Arthurian legend.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A female given name of Welsh origin.
  • proper noun In Arthurian legend, the wife of King Arthur.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Arthurian legend) wife of King Arthur; in some versions of the legend she became Lancelot's lover and that led to the end of the Knights of the Round Table

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Welsh Gwenhwyfar; gwen ("white, fair") and wyfar ("smooth").

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Examples

  • Dante had proper insight when he made the Inferno foggy, and Tennyson, too, in "Guinevere", when he wished to presage unutterable sadness, told how

    Janey Canuck in the West Emily Ferguson 1910

  • My cat Guinevere is now officially a star, and will only grow more conceited as she achieves global exposure.

    Mary Tyler Moore Moment Jes Battis 2008

  • By the way, "Alfred and Guinevere" is one of the great books they've done and you should definitely check it out.

    Contempt, Boredom, and Moravia at 100 2007

  • [16] Mr. Churton Collins thinks that the lines in "Guinevere" --

    A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century 1886

  • Meg Jensen writes of this rediscovered gem from the 1930s, a tale of a 40-year-old governess who stumbles into a world of cocktails and evening gowns when an employment agency sends her to the wrong address: “Over the course of a day, in a series of deft interventions, brilliant repartee, and enough gin to sink a lesser woman, Guinevere is revealed not only to her newfound friends, but more importantly to herself, as a lifesaver, in more ways than one.”

    2008 November 07 « One-Minute Book Reviews 2008

  • An early 12th century church archivolt has an Arthurian scene, perhaps carved by a Breton, that labels Guinevere as 'Winlogee.'

    Cadafael, King of Gwynedd Carla 2009

  • Although I actually like the idea of Guinevere giving him a son...so maybe not!

    HH Com 397 Miss Snark 2006

  • The word "lover" now almost always appears with a nonhuman object -- animal lover, bargain lover, seafood lover -- but surely Launcelot never called Guinevere his significant other.

    WASN'T THE GRASS GREENER A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories Holland, Barbara 1999

  • MR: Can you tell us a little bit about where your stage name "Guinevere" came from?

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Mike Ragogna 2012

  • In some bizarre twist, this means that Xander (i.e. the "normal" one) is going to be Guinevere aka Gwen the maid.

    The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant Millennium Dome 2008

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