Why, the wench being cut short of marketing by word of mouth, desired me to write proposals.
Oh, what sport will be here, if I can persuade this wench to secrecy!
Frieda and Jean were treating this Indian wench like a sister, and a stop had to be put to their nonsense.
You, a wench in full bloom, to be living with the dregs of a man like that husband of yours.
We'll bring off the wench, in spite of them all—just the thing I like.
There's a wench there whom I know, who thinks me as handsome as Cupido.
When you are as much and as hopelessly in my power to-day as the wench in my kitchen!
What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can knit him a stock?
When a man gave out we turned out a wench and put the man in her place.
Softly, wench, softly—dost not see it's a hill we're rising.
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]
"to associate with common women," 1590s, from wench (n.). Related: Wenched; wenching.
