wenches

Noun

wench (plural wenches or (obsolete, dialectal) wenchen)

1. (archaic, dialectal, humorous, offensive, possibly) A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.
   • Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy.
   1. (archaic, dialectal, humorous, offensive, possibly, specifically) A girl or young woman of a lower class.
      • 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.1871, W[illiam] Barry, “The Barony of Threeneheila within Drum”, in Moorland and Stream. With Notes and Prose Idyls on Shooting and Trout Fishing, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 25
2. (archaic, dialectal) Used as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart.
   • 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: [...]1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
3. (archaic) A woman servant; a maidservant.
   • 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...1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Luke xxij:[55–57], folios cxiiii, recto – cxiiii, verso
4. (archaic) A promiscuous woman; a mistress (“other woman in an extramarital relationship”).
   • 2 [Friar Bernardine]. Thou haſt committed— / Bar[abas]. Fornication? but that was in another Country; And beſides, the Wench is dead.c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...

   Synonyms:

   NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise., 304, alley cat, alleycat, amorette, amoret, amorosa, article, Athanasian wench, blowsabella

5. (archaic) A prostitute.

See all 9 meanings of wench