Word: wench Part of Speech: noun 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. Pronunciation: /wɛnt͡ʃ/ 1. A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one. Labels: archaic, dialectal, humorous, offensive, possibly Example: Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy. Example: I, like a tẽder harted vvench, ſkriked out for feare of the divell. 2. A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one. Labels: archaic, dialectal, humorous, offensive, possibly, specifically Example: 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. Used as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart. Labels: archaic, dialectal Example: 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: [...] Example: 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. A woman servant; a maidservant. Labels: archaic Example: 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. Example: "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; […]." 5. A promiscuous woman; a mistress (“other woman in an extramarital relationship”). Labels: archaic Example: 2 [Friar Bernardine]. Thou haſt committed— / Bar[abas]. Fornication? but that was in another Country; And beſides, the Wench is dead. Example: 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. 6. A prostitute. Labels: archaic 7. A black woman (of any age), especially if in a condition of servitude. Labels: US, archaic, historical Example: 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. Example: Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart— [...]