A woman who is cruel, ungrateful, or treacherous, especially toward a parent; named after the character from Shakespeare's King Lear.
From the character Goneril in William Shakespeare's 'King Lear' (1606), one of King Lear's daughters who betrays and mistreats her aging father. The character's name has become a literary eponym for female ingratitude and cruelty.
Shakespeare's Goneril is so memorably awful that her name actually entered English as a common noun—you can call someone a 'goneril' and literary people immediately understand you mean ungrateful and cruel, showing how powerful fictional characters can reshape language.
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