wench
pronunciation
How to pronounce wench in British English:
UK [wentʃ]
How to pronounce wench in American English:
US [wɛntʃ]
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- Noun:
- informal terms for a (young) woman
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- Verb:
- frequent prostitutes
Word Origin
- wench (n.)
- late 13c., wenche "girl, young woman," especially if unmarried, also "female infant," shortened from wenchel "child," also in Middle English "girl, maiden," from Old English wencel, probably related to wancol "unsteady, fickle, weak," from Proto-Germanic *wankila- (cognates: Old Norse vakr "child, weak person," Old High German wanchal "fickle"), from PIE *weng- "to bend, curve" (see wink (v.)). The wenche is nat dead, but slepith. [Wyclif, Matt. ix:24, c. 1380] In Middle English occasionally with disparaging suggestion, and secondary sense of "concubine, strumpet" is attested by mid-14c. Also "serving-maid, bondwoman, young woman of a humble class" (late 14c.), a sense retained in the 19c. U.S. South in reference to slave women of any age. In Shakespeare's day a female flax-worker could be a flax-wench, flax-wife, or flax-woman.
- wench (v.)
- "to associate with common women," 1590s, from wench (n.). Related: Wenched; wencher; wenching.
Example
- 1. Demanding I treat her as a wench .
- 2. First you send everybody away.what you waiting for . Wench ?
- 3. Ask the lady herself or go find a handy wench bartender .
- 4. Their mother had to will herself not to guzzle it down like some tavern wench .
- 5. You forget to wash wench .