wench

noun

1. 1

   archaicA girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.

   Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy.

   I, like a tẽder harted vvench, ſkriked out for feare of the divell.

   hee weepes like a wench that had ſhed her / milke, he hath confeſt himſelfe to Morgan, whom hee ſuppoſes to be a Friar, [...]

   Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz ſtayed by En-rogel: (for they might not be ſeene to come into the citie) and a wench went and told them: and they went, and tolde king Dauid.

2. 2

   archaicA girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one. A girl or young woman of a lower class.

   The woman is a brazen, hard-looking wench, a female pedlar, who hawks needles, thread, cheap looking-glasses, pious pictures, almanacs, hair-pins, ballads, of the most humble pattern, through the country.

3. 3

   archaicUsed as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart.

   When I am dead, good Wench, / Let me be vs'd with Honor; ſtrew me ouer / With Maiden Flowers, that all the world may know / I was a chaſte Wife, to my Graue: [...]

   The mother held her tight, / Saying hard between her teeth—'Why wench, why wench, / The squire speaks to you now—the squire's too good; / He means to set you up, and comfort us. / Be mannerly at least.'

4. 4

   archaicA woman servant; a maidservant.

   When they had kyndled a fyre in the myddes of the palys / and were sett doune to gedder / Peter alsoo sate doune amonge them. And won off the wenches / as he sate / beholde him by the light and sett goode eyesight on him / and sayde: This same was also with hym. Then he denyed hym sayinge: Woman I knowe hym nott.

   "I fear there is a chase; I think I hear three or four galloping together; I am sure I hear more horses than one." / "Pooh, pooh, it is the wench of the house that is clattering to the well in her pattens; […]."

   [W]orking for Colonel Boone a the time—and two more men whose names I disremember now, and a nigger wench we had for a cook. […] So I got onto one of the ponies and led the others down to the spring near camp to water them while the wench was a getting breakfast, and some o' the rest o' the outfit was a fixin the saddles and greasing the wagon.

5. 5

   archaicA promiscuous woman; a mistress (“other woman in an extramarital relationship”).

   2 [Friar Bernardine]. Thou haſt committed— / Bar[abas]. Fornication? but that was in another Country; And beſides, the Wench is dead.

   Whilſt Men have theſe Ambitious Fancies, / And wanton Wenches read Romances, / Our Sex will—What? out with it: Lye: / And Theirs in equal Strains reply.

   It must not thought a digression from my intended speculation, to talk of bawds in a discourse upon wenches; for a woman of the town is not thoroughly and properly such, without having gone through the education of one of these houses.

6. 6

   archaicA prostitute.

7. 7

   archaicA black woman (of any age), especially if in a condition of servitude.

   Nancy Basset, 28, likely wench, mulatto / Proved to be free. / Certified free as per General Birch Certificate. / / Patience Jackson, 23, very likely wench, mulatto / Says she was born free Rhode Island. / Certified free as per General Birch Certificate.

   Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart— [...]

verb

1. 1

   archaicTo frequent prostitutes; to whore; also, to womanize.

   This is ſure ſome hide-bound ſtudent, that proportions his expence by his penſion; and wencheth at Tottenham court for ſtewed prunes and cheeſcakes.

   He [a man under the influence of the planet Mars] hath a marke or ſcar in his face, is broad-ſhouldered, a ſturdy ſtrong body, being bold and proud, given to mocke, ſcorne, quarrell, drinke, game and wench: which you may eaſily know by the Signe he is in; if in the houſe of ♀ he wencheth, if in ☿s he ſteals, [...]

   In ſhort, Ned has drank, wenched, fought, and beggared himſelf, through an exalted ſolicitude for the general emolument, and is now cloſe pent up in one of our priſons, out of a pure and diſintereſted regard for the welfare of ſociety.

   I know a clergyman who, having enjoyed for several years the world's good opinion, was turned off, through a ridiculous pique, by a young nobleman to whom he was preceptor. […] He drank, wenched, and was so complete a gambler, that, had he kept his old situation much longer, he would have ruined the principles of his pupil.

2. 2

   archaicTo act as a wench.

   λαικάζω (laikázō), to wench

Forms

plural

wenches, wenchen

past tense

wenched

past participle

wenched

present participle

wenching

third person singular

wenches