Cuckquean

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈkʌk.kwiːn/

Definitions

1. A female partner who experiences her significant other's disloyalty, potentially taking pleasure in the emotional turmoil of the situation and their infidelity
2. A woman who is aware of her partner's unfaithfulness and may gain a sense of enjoyment or emotional response from his betrayals
3. A woman who finds herself in a relationship where her partner is unfaithful, often deriving a complex mix of feelings from his infidelity and emotional betrayal

Etymology: "Cuckquean" is a blend of two older words, "cuckold" and "quean." A cuckold is a man whose wife has been unfaithful to him, a term that goes back to the cuckoo, whose habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests became a figure for a husband raising another man's child. "Quean" was an old word for a disreputable woman, originally meaning a woman of any kind before narrowing to something close to a harlot or a hussy. Put together, the two words describe the female counterpart of the cuckold: a woman whose partner has been unfaithful to her. The blend is a clear example of English speakers needing a term for a gap in the vocabulary and building one from pieces they already had. The word has also been used as a verb, with that sense derived from the noun.