wench
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /wɛnt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ɛntʃ
Forms: form: wenches
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English wench, wenche (“female baby; girl (especially unmarried); maiden, young woman; bondwoman; serving maid; beloved, sweetheart; concubine, mistress; harlot, prostitute”) [and other forms], a shortened form of Middle English wenchel (“girl; maiden; child”), from Old English wenċel, winċel (“child; servant; slave”), from Proto-Germanic *wankilą, from Proto-Germanic *wankijaną (“to sway; waver”). The English word is cognate with Old High German wenken (“to waver; to give way, yield”), wankōn (“to totter”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy.
text: I, like a tẽder harted vvench, ſkriked out for feare of the divell.
ref: a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “[The Second Booke] Chapter 14”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC, folio 164, recto:
english: The New Arcadia
translation: The New Arcadia
text: hee weepes like a wench that had ſhed her / milke, he hath confeſt himſelfe to Morgan, whom hee ſuppoſes to be a Friar, [...]
ref: c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 247, column 2:
text: 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.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Samuel 17:17, column 1:
text: Beside, this I affirm—afford / Impression of it in thy soul—I will not use my sword / On thee or any for a wench, unjustly though thou tak'st / The thing thou gav'st; […]
ref: [1611?], Homer, “Book I”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume I, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC, page 35:
text: He [a chief minister] is uſually governed by a decayed Wench, or favourite Footman, who are the Tunnels through which all Graces are conveyed, and may properly be called, in the laſt Reſort, the Governors of the Kingdom.
ref: 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Continuation of the State of England; so Well Governed by a Queen as to Need no First Minister. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 248:
text: He was received by the daughter of the house, a pretty, buxom, blue-eyed little wench, who seemed to regard the tall, bronzed, black-eyed stranger with much and evident favour.
ref: 1887, William Black, “New Quarters”, in Sabina Zembra […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 22:
text: We got wenches on the benches, and bitties with titties / Housing all girlies from city to city
ref: 1986 November 15, Beastie Boys, Rick Rubin, “Rhymin & Stealin”, in Licensed to Ill, performed by the Beastie Boys:
text: "Can't we use a real girl? Can't Maria just play along?" / "She's at the movies with Chanel." / "Lucky wench. Why can't Ryan just be with a guy? Aren't you offended?" / "Just doing what Rain said to do. And actually, a little, yeah."
ref: 2012 September 25, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain (webcomic), Comic 262 - Too Funny:
glosses: A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1871, W[illiam] Barry, “The Barony of Threeneheila within Drum”, in Moorland and Stream. With Notes and Prose Idyls on Shooting and Trout Fishing, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 25:
glosses: A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.
A girl or young woman of a lower class.
examples: text: 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: [...]
ref: 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 226, column 2:
text: 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.'
ref: 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Third Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 126:
glosses: Used as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Luke xxij:[55–57], folios cxiiii, recto – cxiiii, verso:
text: "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; […]."
ref: 1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter V, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume I (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 150:
text: [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.
ref: 1881, Henry Inman, “A Legend of Pawnee Rock; or How the Life of an Old Trapper was Saved by a Bird”, in Stories of the Old Santa Fe Trail, Kansas City, Mo.: Ramsey, Millett & Hudson, pages 89 and 91:
glosses: A woman servant; a maidservant.
examples: text: 2 [Friar Bernardine]. Thou haſt committed— / Bar[abas]. Fornication? but that was in another Country; And beſides, the Wench is dead.
ref: c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act IV, signature G2, verso:
text: 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.
ref: 1702, Mat[thew] Prior, “To a Young Gentleman in Love. A Tale.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, 2nd edition, London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, […], published 1709, →OCLC, page 103:
text: 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.
ref: 1712 January 15 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, January 4, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 266; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 329:
synonyms: word: NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise.
word: 304
word: alley cat
word: alleycat
word: amorette
word: amoret
word: amorosa
word: article
word: Athanasian wench
word: blowsabella
word: bop
word: chippy
word: cocotte
word: cockslut
word: cockwhore
word: crumpet
word: cum dumpster
word: cum guzzler
word: cumhole
word: cumslut
word: cumwhore
word: Cyprian
word: demimondaine
word: doxy
word: drab
word: eager beaver
word: Essex girl
word: flirt-gill
word: floogy
word: floosie
word: floosy
word: floozie
word: floozy
word: fornicator
word: fornicatour
word: fornicatress
word: fornicatrix
word: fuckstress
word: Fulham virgin
word: geebag
word: giglot
word: gillian
word: gill
word: good-time girl
word: grim
word: grisette
word: harlot
word: ho bag
word: ho-bag
word: hoe bag
word: hoe-bag
word: hoe
word: hoochie mama
word: hoochie
word: hood rat
word: ho
word: hussy
word: jade
word: jay
word: jillflirt
word: lady of light virtue
word: LBFM
word: light-o'-love
word: light-of-love
word: lightskirt
word: little brown fucking machine
word: loose woman
word: lorette
word: mab
word: manizer
word: minx
word: moll
word: mort wap-apace
word: nymphomaniac
word: painted Jezebel
word: puta
word: puzzel
word: quean
word: Quicumque vult
word: quiff
word: rig
word: scag
word: scrubber
word: skank
word: skettle
word: sket
word: skit
word: slag
word: slapper
word: slattern
word: sloven
word: slutbag
word: slut
word: stale
word: streel
word: strumpet
word: sweet cheeks
word: tartlet
word: tart
word: thotty
word: thot
word: town bicycle
word: town bike
word: tramp
word: treddle
word: trollop
word: trull
word: village bicycle
word: village bike
word: wagon
word: waistcoateer
word: wanton
word: wench
word: whore
word: bit on the side
word: concubine
word: doxy
word: dulcinea
word: goomah
word: leman
word: loon
word: minx
word: mistress
word: number two
word: side bitch
word: side chick
word: side piece
word: side ting
word: sprunk
word: strumpet
word: wench
word: wifelet
glosses: A promiscuous woman; a mistress (“other woman in an extramarital relationship”).
glosses: A prostitute.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1776–1787, Carmelita Robertson, Elizabeth E. D. Eve, Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia: Tracing the History of Tracadie Loyalists, 1776–87 (Curatorial Report; no. 91), Halifax, N.S.: History Section, Nova Scotia Museum, Department of Tourism & Culture, published 2000, →ISBN:
text: Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart— [...]
ref: 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “[Eliza’s Escape]”, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume I, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, page 100:
text: A colored girl […] was fined ten dollars in the Freedman's Court yesterday, for being drunk and disorderly. Not having the money in her possession, she requested that a guard be sent with her to her residence to procure it. The Provost allowed a guard to wait on the wench, who, as soon as she found herself inside of her own door, locked it, and left the poor guard outside without the money. He returned to court without either the wench or fine.
ref: 1866 March 2, “Sharp Wench”, in The Appeal, St. Paul; Minneapolis, Minn.: Parker, Burgett & Hardy, →OCLC, page 3; quoted in Hannah Rosen, “Notes”, in Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South (Gender and American Culture), Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2009, →ISBN, footnote 186, page 282:
text: So complete was this illusion, claims [Eric] Lott, that many audience members, including Mark Twain's mother, believed they were seeing authentic, biologically black performers on New York stages. Of course, wench characters seem to especially test the bounds of authentic performance. Played by men, wenches were nonetheless read by audiences as beautiful women: [...] [E]xtant photographs and engravings of wench performers do not always represent them as blacked up, […] In antebellum minstrel shows, wench songs were most often sung about mulatto women rather than by them.
ref: 2014, Kirsten Pullen, “Light Egyptian: Lena Horne and the Representation of Black Femininity”, in Like a Natural Woman: Spectacular Female Performance in Classical Hollywood, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, pages 106–107:
synonyms: word: negress
glosses: A black woman (of any age), especially if in a condition of servitude.
Derived terms: Athanasian wench
bed wench
beer wench
door wench
henchwench
wenchdom
wenchful
wenchhood
wenchish
wenchless
wenchlike
wenchliness
wenchly
wenchy