wench.
A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.
Meaning & usage
A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one.
Jane played the role of a wench in an Elizabethan comedy.
A girl or young woman, especially a buxom or lively one. A girl or young woman of a lower class.
Used as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart.
A woman servant; a maidservant.
A promiscuous woman; a mistress (“other woman in an extramarital relationship”).
A prostitute.
A black woman (of any age), especially if in a condition of servitude.
Where this word comes from
The noun is derived from Middle English wench, wenche (“female baby; girl (especially unmarried); maiden, young woman; bondwoman; serving maid; beloved, sweetheart; concubine, mistress; harlot, prostitute”) [and other forms], a shortened form of Middle English wenchel (“girl; maiden; child”), from Old English wenċel, winċel (“child; servant; slave”), from Proto-Germanic *wankilą, from Proto-Germanic *wankijaną (“to sway; waver”). The English word is cognate with Old High German wenken (“to waver; to give way, yield”), wankōn (“to totter”). The verb is derived from the noun.
To frequent prostitutes; to whore; also, to womanize.
To act as a wench.
Where this word comes from
The noun is derived from Middle English wench, wenche (“female baby; girl (especially unmarried); maiden, young woman; bondwoman; serving maid; beloved, sweetheart; concubine, mistress; harlot, prostitute”) [and other forms], a shortened form of Middle English wenchel (“girl; maiden; child”), from Old English wenċel, winċel (“child; servant; slave”), from Proto-Germanic *wankilą, from Proto-Germanic *wankijaną (“to sway; waver”). The English word is cognate with Old High German wenken (“to waver; to give way, yield”), wankōn (“to totter”). The verb is derived from the noun.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.