Related Searches
on Ask.com
Synonyms
wench - 5 dictionary results
wench
[wench]
–noun
| 1. | a country lass or working girl: The milkmaid was a healthy wench. |
| 2. | Usually Facetious. a girl or young woman. |
| 3. | Archaic. a strumpet. |
–verb (used without object)
| 4. | to associate, esp. habitually, with promiscuous women. |
Origin:
1250–1300; ME, back formation from wenchel, OE wencel child, akin to wancol tottering, said of a child learning to walk; akin to G wankeln to totter
1250–1300; ME, back formation from wenchel, OE wencel child, akin to wancol tottering, said of a child learning to walk; akin to G wankeln to totter

Related forms:
wencher, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source
|
Link To wench
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Wench
Wench\, n. [OE. wenche, for older wenchel a child, originally, weak, tottering; cf. AS. wencle a maid, a daughter, wencel a pupil, orphan, wincel, winclu, children, offspring, wencel weak, wancol unstable, OHG. wanchol; perhaps akin to E. wink. See Wink.]1. A young woman; a girl; a maiden. --Shak. Lord and lady, groom and wench. --Chaucer. That they may send again My most sweet wench, and gifts to boot. --Chapman. He was received by the daughter of the house, a pretty, buxom, blue-eyed little wench. --W. Black. 2. A low, vicious young woman; a drab; a strumpet. She shall be called his wench or his leman. --Chaucer. It is not a digression to talk of bawds in a discourse upon wenches. --Spectator. 3. A colored woman; a negress. [U. S.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Cite This Source
Cite This Source
wench
c.1290 wenche "girl or young woman," shortened from wenchel "child" (12c.), from O.E. wencel, probably related to wancol "unsteady, fickle, weak," and cognate with O.N. vakr "child, weak person," O.H.G. wanchal "fickle." The word degenerated through being used in ref. to servant girls, and by 1362 was being used in a sense of "woman of loose morals, mistress." The verb meaning "to associate with common women" is from 1599.
"The wenche is nat dead, but slepith." [Wyclif, Matt. ix.24, c.1380]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.

