Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

colleen

/kəˈlin/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.30 in modern English

Syllables: colleen
IPA: /kəˈlin/

9

Scrabble Score

7

Letters

2

Syllables

5

Unique Chars

Meaning

name

A female given name from English or Irish.

noun

noun

A young single woman.

Example Sentences

"Her name is spelled Coleen making her "Co" with a hard O and not Colleen by any stretch - I'm suspicious on her authority on the subject."
"Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen \ And she smiled as she passed me by."
"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; […]"

Etymology

From the word colleen, from Irish cailín (“girl”), not used as a name in Ireland. Colleen can also be interpreted as a variant of Coleen, which was a product of marketing by the Hollywood film industry (to promote a new starlet in the 1920s).

Origin

Source language: Irish

Word Breakdown

Root: cailín

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /kəˈlin/
British English: /kəˈliːn/

Inflected Forms

colleens (plural) coleen (alternative)

Frequently Paired Words

bouchaleen

Rhymes With

between mean seen green clean scene machine queen screen marine dean routine

Questions

How do you pronounce colleen?: The recorded pronunciation is /kəˈlin/.
What does colleen mean?: A female given name from English or Irish.
Where does colleen come from?: It is traced to Irish.

How to pronounce colleen

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “colleen”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/kəˈlin/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “colleen”.
Repeat and practice — Say “colleen” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.