Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
wench [wench] ExamplesWord Origin noun
- a country lass or working girl: The milkmaid was a healthy wench.
- Usually Facetious. a girl or young woman.
- Archaic. a strumpet.
verb (used without object)
- to associate, especially habitually, with promiscuous women.
Origin of wench 1250–1300; Middle English, back formation from wenchel, Old English wencel child, akin to wancol tottering, said of a child learning to walk; akin to German wankeln to totterRelated formswench·er, nounCan be confusedwench winch Examples from the Web for wenching Historical Examples of wenching
Their other chief hobby was, in the language of the time, wenching.
A. Hamilton Gibbs
Why, is any business more public than drinking and wenching?
John Dryden
Heads of colleges, reverend clerics, and holders of Fellowships must all answer to the charge of wenching.
A. Hamilton Gibbs
Mdrie Gautruche was one of the wenching, idling, vagabond workmen who make their whole life a Monday.
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
British Dictionary definitions for wenching wench noun
- a girl or young woman, esp a buxom or lively one: now used facetiously
- archaic a female servant
- archaic a prostitute
verb (intr)
- archaic to frequent the company of prostitutes
Derived Formswencher, nounWord Origin for wench Old English wencel child, from wancol weak; related to Old High German wanchal, wankōn Word Origin and History for wenching wench v.
“to associate with common women,” 1590s, from wench (n.). Related: Wenched; wenching.
wench n.
late 13c., wenche “girl or young woman,” shortened from wenchel “child” (12c.), from Old English wencel, probably related to wancol “unsteady, fickle, weak,” and cognate with Old Norse vakr “child, weak person,” Old High German wanchal “fickle.” The word degenerated through being used in reference to servant girls, and by mid-14c. was being used in a sense of “woman of loose morals, mistress.”
The wenche is nat dead, but slepith. [Wyclif, Matt. ix:24, c.1380]