Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A young woman or girl, especially a peasant girl.
- n. A woman servant.
- n. A wanton woman.
- v. To consort or engage in sex with wanton women. Used of a man.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. l. A child (of either sex).
- n. A female child; a girl; a maid or damsel; a young woman in general. [Wench had originally no depreciatory implication, and continued to be used in a respectful sense, especially as a familiar term, long after it had acquired such an implication in specific employment; and it is still commonly so used in provincial English, and sometimes archaically in literature.]
- n. Specifically.
- n. A girl or young woman of a humble order or class; especially, a maidservant; a working-girl.
- n. A lewd or immodest woman; a mistress; a concubine; a strumpet.
- n. A colored woman of any age; a negress or mulattress, especially one in service.
- To consort with strumpets.
- n. An obsolete form of winch for wince.
Wiktionary
- n. a young woman, especially a servant
- n. a promiscuous woman
- v. To frequent prostitutes, to womanize
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A young woman; a girl; a maiden.
- n. A low, vicious young woman; a drab; a strumpet.
- n. A colored woman; a negress.
- v. To frequent the company of wenches, or women of ill fame.
WordNet 3.0
- n. informal terms for a (young) woman
- v. frequent prostitutes
Etymologies
- Middle English, short for wenchel, child, from Old English wencel.
Examples
“Bozo The Neoclown says: president obama really expects the teabagging tards to be thankful when this wench is their leader?”
“Steph, will you call the wench and plan something, we are so hermitish these days.”
“Cow-eyed, you called the wench; but cows have horns,”
“If you don't mind being called a wench it is fine with me.”
“I was gravely instructing Dorcas above stairs, and wondering what would be the subject of the conversation to which the wench was to be a witness, when these outcries reached my ears.”
“One called a wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my slipper; and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, my shasoon.”
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
“And after all a wench is a commonish sort of a object, and even the wench the lad's in love with is”
“So I got on to 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 fixing the saddles and greasing the wagon.”
“He knew he must get home as fast as he could to help Patience in milking the cows, feeding the pigs and poultry, and getting the supper, or some of the other things that his elder brother Jephthah called wench-work and would not do.”
“She was a fine strapping wench, that is the truth of it! five foot ten inches, and as stout as a trooper.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wench’.
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people (bad)
nouns for bad people / words that describe bad people.
goto the good people list
( people, character, descriptor, noun )culprit, perpetrator, tormentor, swindler, bamboozler, nincompoop, thief, liar, back stabber, vandal, burglar, cheater and 85 more...
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Pirate Words
Arrrrrrrgh. September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, mateys.
arrrrrrrrgh., ahoy, plank, avast, shiver-me-timbers, wench, scurvey dogs, aye aye, land lubber, swabbie, swashbuckle, gold and 21 more...
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Maids
Maids of all stripes.
twait-shad, chambermaid, demoiselle, fille de chambre, housemaid, amah, lady's maid, femme-de-chambre, tire-woman, soubrette, comb-brush, abigail and 61 more...
yarb We have all our weak side, as you well know. Tell me where Signor de Santillane is fallible. Is he fond of play? does he wench? On what lay are his snug little vices?
- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 9 ch. 1 Oct 7, 2008