Queen (playing card)

For the 1966 Greek film, see Queen of Clubs (film).

Queen cards of all four suits in the Rouennais pattern

The Queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. In French playing cards, the usual rank of a queen is as if it were 12, that is, between the King and the Jack. In tarot decks, it outranks the Knight which in turn outranks the Jack.

In the game of Hearts, the Queen of Spades is the major card to avoid, and is called a variety of unsavoury names.

French deck manufacturers assigned each court card a particular historical or mythological personage. The Queens in a French deck have assigned names as follows:

Queens in the French national pattern (portrait officiel)

Hearts	Diamonds	Spades	Clubs
File:Queen of hearts fr.svg	File:Queen of diamonds fr.svg	File:Queen of spades fr.svg	File:Queen of clubs fr.svg
Judith, Biblical figure	Rachel, Biblical figure	Pallas, another name for the goddess Athena	Argine, an anagram of Regina (Latin for "queen")

Since both King and Queen in the French language begin with the letter R, French queen cards are called Dame (Lady).

See also

Queen of Flowers from the first printed deck (15th century)

• List of poker hand nicknames
• The Queen of Hearts, a character from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Heart Queen, Karen Mizuki's codename in JAKQ Dengekitai.
• "The Queen of Spades", a short story by Alexander Pushkin
• The Queen of Spades, an opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky based on Pushkin's story
• Queen of Spades, the title used by Chibodee Crocket in the 1994 anime Mobile Fighter G Gundam
• "Queen of Hearts", a Hank DeVito-written 1979 song by Dave Edmunds; the international hit version was released in 1981 by Juice Newton.
• Queen of Hearts, a BBC TV play of 1985
• Marsha, Queen of Diamonds, a villain from the 1960s Batman TV series played by Carolyn Jones.
• Queen of Clubs: Ruby, Onyx and Diamond Editions, a remix album trilogy featuring singer-songwriter Nadia Ali as the Queen of Clubs
• Three-card Monte