GDict

wench

wentʃ4 senses · 93 ms
Level C2
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noun/wɛnt͡ʃ/
  1. 1

    A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.archaicdialectalhumorous

    • Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy.
  2. 2

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

    • 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

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

    • 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

    A woman servant; a maidservant.archaic

    • "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. 5

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

    • 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.
  6. 6

    A prostitute.archaic

  7. 7

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

    • Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart— [...]
verb/wɛnt͡ʃ/
  1. 1

    To frequent prostitutes; to whore; also, to womanize.archaichumorousintransitive

    • This is ſure ſome hide-bound ſtudent, that proportions his expence by his penſion; and wencheth at Tottenham court for ſtewed prunes and cheeſcakes.
    • 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.
  2. 2

    To act as a wench.archaicintransitive

    • λαικάζω (laikázō), to wench

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