Queen (playing card)
The queen is a playing card with a picture of a woman on it. In many European languages, the king and queen begin with the same letter so the latter is often called dame or variations thereof. In French playing cards, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the jack. In tarot decks, it outranks the knight which in turn outranks the jack.
In several card games, including the middle eastern Trex and French Barbu, the queen is a major card to avoid taking, with each queen taken inflicting a penalty on the player. Similarly, in Hearts, the queen of spades is to be avoided, and is called a variety of unsavoury names.
In the Paris pattern, each court card is identified as a particular historical or mythological personage as follows:
| Hearts | Diamonds | Spades | Clubs |
| Judith, Biblical figure | Rachel, Biblical figure | Pallas, an epithet of the goddess Athena | Argine, an anagram of Regina |