Meaning of Karen | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A female given name from Ancient Greek.
2. A middle-aged white woman who exhibits a strong sense of white privilege and entitlement—often rooted in racism against minority races—and frequently targets or antagonizes individuals who face greater societal challenges or must work significantly harder than she.
   derogatory, slang
3. One of the seven great Parthian feudal families.
   historical
4. A member of a diverse ethnic group originating in Myanmar and Thailand.
5. A group of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by people of the Karen ethnic group, also called Karenic.
6. Alternative letter-case form of Karen (“(derogatory) any person, especially female, exhibiting an exaggerated sense of entitlement”).
   alt-of
7. Any person, especially female, exhibiting an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
   broadly, derogatory
8. A transliteration of the Armenian male given name Կարեն (Karen).
9. Former name of Kayin (“state (administrative division) of Myanmar”).

Equivalents

Examples

“Left you a lover in that far land, / O Karen sad, that you pine so long! / Would I could unravel and understand / That sorrowful, sweet Norwegian song!”

“I was not called Karen after Hans Andersen's dancing girl, but after a Danish friend of my mother's who married an Englishman and was my godmother. So much for our family affairs.”

““There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American.”

““I pull out the dog treats I carry for just for such intransigence,” he wrote. “That’s when I started video recording with my iPhone, and when her inner Karen fully emerged and took a dark turn,” he said, using the name that has become slang for an entitled white woman.”

“It was through that performance that Amy Cooper took on the mantle of an American archetype: the white woman who weaponizes her vulnerability to exact violence upon a Black man. […] In 2020, she is simply Karen.”

““If I lived Chloe’s life, where she was walking around with other wealthy people basically being upper-class Karens having a fit when their dogs aren’t allowed at yoga, then I might understand,” he said.”

“He plays a suburban homeowner who loves nothing more than to snitch on his fellow whites, calling the cops on any Caucasian who steps foot on his lawn, be they old lady, a girl scout, or Colin Jost. Charlie xcx gets in on the action as his proud Karen of a wife.”

“This Karen threatened to get me fired if I didn't give her a free meal.”

“2021 Adam Korson as Phil Orley in "Ft. Ghost Child", episode five of SurrealEstate The organization wasn't meeting my needs, so I became a total Karen and asked to see the manager. He wasn't available so I took my business elsewhere.”

“U Nu's government was Socialist with a program of nationalization. But it had to fight for survival against almost universal disorder complicated by a Communist rebellion, a Karen rising, which was far more serious, and, in 1950, the arrival from Yünnan of General Li Mi's Kuomintang division after its rout by the Chinese Communists.”

“There are more than a hundred such groups, including the Karen of Thailand and Burma; the Kachin in Burma; the Akha, the Lahu, and the Lisu in Thailand; the Hmong, the Kmhmu, and the Yao in Laos; and the Nùng and the Lati in Vietnam.”

CEFR level