The Brief: Quaranteening is what a queen does in quarantine. It can refer to a drag queen, an actual monarch, or anyone else with queen-like qualities.

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A combination of the words “quarantining” and “queen,” the word “quaranqueening” appeared in a New York Times article “Shangela Cooks Wiener Schnitzel While ‘Quaranqueening'” on April 24, 2020. The article follows a former contestant on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, D.J. Pierce, also known as Shangela, during his COVID-19 quarantine.

The terms quaranqueening and quaranqueen have been used on social media to describe drag queens, LGBTQ+ folks, and other queens who are in quarantine.