Noun: concubine
| Singular | concubine |
| Plural | concubines |
Sample Sentences
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And that is more than I will yield unto: / I know I am too mean to be your queen, / And yet too good to be your concubine. [c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:]
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He ſhall be made a chaſte and luſtleſſe Eunuch,
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And in my Sarell tend my Concubines: [c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:]
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And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge. And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead. And I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel: for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 20:4–6:]
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Solomon, who was one of the Deity's favorities, had a copulation cabinet composed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. [c. 1909, Mark Twain, “Letter VIII”, in Letters from the Earth:]
Nouns inflected like concubine
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English concubine (first attested 1250–1300), from Anglo-Norman concubine, from Latin concubīna, equivalent to concub- (variant stem of concumbō (“to lie together”)) + feminine suffix -īna. See: Middle English Nouns '
concubine', Latin Nouns '
concubīna'.