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verb
Wench  v. i.  (past & past part. wenched; pres. part. wenching)  To frequent the company of wenches, or women of ill fame.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wench" Quotes from Famous Books



... than she was at that moment under the distaff of Henry III. Society was corrupted to its core. "There is no more truth, no more justice, no more mercy," moaned President L'Etoile. "To slander, to lie, to rob, to wench, to steal; all things are permitted save to do right and to speak the truth." Impiety the most cynical, debauchery the most unveiled, public and unpunished homicides, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preternatural, were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... time, that a young woman was received into our family, as a domestic: this person was far from being handsome or in the slightest degree interesting, in countenance—yet her figure was rather good than otherwise. She was a bold, wanton-looking wench; and soon after she came to live with us, I noticed that my father frequently eyed her with something sensual in his glances. He frequently sought opportunities of being alone with her; and one evening, hearing a noise in the kitchen, I went to the head of the stairs, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... soliloquy, the speaker withdraws himself behind a bush; and, concealed by its dense foliage, keeps his eye on the mulatto wench, still wending her way through the thick standing ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... looked upon the ground with bent brows, turning the matter over and over in his mind; but he was a shrewd man and one, withal, that made the best use of a cracked pipkin; so at last he looked up and said, but in no joyous tone, "If the wench will go her own gait, let her go. I had thought to make a lady of her; yet if she chooses to be what she is like to be, I have nought to do with her henceforth. Ne'ertheless I will give her my blessing when she is ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... long stay doth mourn; His chaste wife prayeth for his safe return; While Circe's amorous charms her prayers control, And rather vex than please his virtuous soul. Hamilcar's son, who made great Rome afraid, By a mean wench of Spain is captive led. This Hypsicratea is, the virtuous fair, Who for her husband's dear love cut her hair, And served in all his wars: this is the wife Of Brutus, Portia, constant in her life And death: ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... notes how, by chewing tobacco, Mr. Chetwynde, who was consumptive, became very fat. He remarks how a board fell, and the dust powdered the ladies' heads at the play, "which made good sport." He records every venison-pasty, every flagon of wine, every pretty wench whom he encountered in his march through his youth towards the vault in St. Olave's. He is vexed with Mrs. Pepys and troubled by "my aunt's base ugly humours." He is "full of repentance," like the Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to expense and pleasure, "so ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... She is no child Of mine. She is a wench who lied and stole Repaid my love with treason. Broke my heart And left me weakened for mine enemies To ruin and to taunt. Tell me the rest, Leave not a portion out. Describe her pain, Her hunger, her remorse. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... Idalia (for Eliza was Ouidaesque even in her titles) only cost her eighteen-pence. She seems to have been a clean girl. She did not drop warm lard on the leaves. She did not tottle up her milk-scores on the bastard-title. She did not scribble in the margin "Emanuella is a foul wench." She did not dog's-ear her little library, or stain it, or tear it. I owe it to that rare and fortunate circumstance of her neatness that her beloved books have come into my possession after the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... wife of Peter the Great and empress of Russia, daughter of a Livonian peasant; "a little stumpy body, very brown,... strangely chased about from the bottom to the top of the world,... had once been a kitchen wench"; married first to a Swedish dragoon, became afterwards the mistress of Prince Menschikoff, and then of Peter the Great, who eventually married her; succeeded him as empress, with Menschikoff as minister; for a time ruled well, but in the end gave ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... have gone and left them crying had not Robaccia, the blowsy wench and good-for-naught, wailed aloud and caught her by ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted upon me. That I should permit the court-ship of me to be conducted like that of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in proper ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... 'it is not upon my head that I do not wed this wench. You be my witness that I would wed; it gores my heart to see her look so pale. It tears my vitals to see any woman look pale. As Lucretius says, "Better the sunshine ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... fifteen wives is nothing; eleven widows and nine maids, is a simple coming in for one man: and then, to 'scape drowning thrice; and to be in peril of my life with the edge of a feather-bed,[56] here are simple 'scapes! Well, if fortune be a woman she's a good wench for this gear.—I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare

... too! The wench, I find, would be a wit, Had she command of words eno', And on the right one chanced to hit: For pity, once, I'll set her clear: The laurels, you would say, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... attention to the Italian madrigals of the fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town, goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes love among trees to a country wench. ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... very clearly, inquired suddenly whether that "wench" was going to keep them much longer in such a place. The Count, always courteous, realized that they could not expect such a painful sacrifice from a woman, and that the offer should originate from her. Monsieur Carre-Lamadon remarked that if the French ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... Powhatan and his trayne had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe, made of Rarowcun skinnes and all the tayles hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of sixteen or eighteen years, and along on each side the house, two rowes of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red; many of their heads bedecked with the white downe of Birds; but everyone with something: and a great chayne of white ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Formerly it was possible. A man wrote perhaps some half-a-dozen novels during the whole course of his career. He could have a dark girl for the first, a light girl for the second, sketch a merry little wench for the third, and draw you something stately for the fourth. For the remaining two he could go abroad. Nowadays, when a man turns out a novel and six short stories once a year, description has to be dispensed with. It is not the writer's fault. There is not sufficient ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... springing any theories wilder than 'c-a-t spells cat,' but when folks have gone, I re'lize I've been stepping on their pet religious corns. Oh, the mill foreman keeps dropping in, and that Danish shoemaker, and one fellow from Elder's factory, and a few Svenskas, but you know Bea: big good-hearted wench like her wants a lot of folks around—likes to fuss over 'em—never satisfied unless she tiring herself ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... is I don't want to be a lady if it makes folks so crewel an so deceitful as that," said Submit Goodrich, a black-eyed, bright cheeked wench, old Israel's youngest daughter. "To think o' her pretendin not to know him, right afore all the folks, and she on her knees to him a cryin only four days ago. I don't care if she is Squire Edwards' gal, I hain't got no opinyun o' ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... I should get laughed at. Rosalie is a stout wench. She's worth a man to me. I shall have to hire a lad the day she goes off.... We can have another talk about it after the vintage. Besides, I don't want to be robbed. Give and take, say I. That's fair. What do ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... than that of a great king in exile? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune? Mr. Addison has painted such a figure in his noble piece of Cato. But suppose fugitive Cato fuddling himself at a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen faithful and tipsy companions of defeat, and a landlord calling out for his bill; and the dignity of misfortune is straightway lost. The Historical Muse turns away shamefaced from the vulgar scene, and closes the door—on which the exile's unpaid ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... proceed, howe'er (our plan explained:) A pretty servant-girl a man retain'd. She pleas'd his eye, and presently he thought, With ease she might to am'rous sports be brought; He prov'd not wrong; the wench was blithe and gay, A buxom lass, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... old woman snapped in pain, as she applied her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it. "What's roused ye, you tiger girl? I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's to cook for ye all? For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and knows nothing." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... floors of a large brown stone house in Bleecker Street, and the accommodating landlady found a colored wench to keep her rooms in order and cook her meals. A room at the back and facing the south was fitted up for Masters. It was a masculine-looking room with its solid mahogany furniture, and as his books were stored in the cellar of the ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... down." These words spake the hero, and began the following tale: "We lived in a narrow street in the house Gavilla now owns, when I was a slave. There, by the will of the gods, I fell in love with the wife of Terentius, the innkeeper; you knew Melissa of Tarentum, that pretty round-checked little wench. It was no carnal passion, so hear me, Hercules, it wasn't; I was not in love with her physical charms. No, it was because she was such a good sport. I never asked her for a thing and had her deny me; if she had an as, I had half. I trusted her with everything I had and never was done out ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father said, "Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?"—both of them having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... swoon, by the mocking laughter of the chamber-maid Frederika, who, more easy going than she, gladly allowed the Baron to trifle wantonly with her and pinch her cheeks or play with her curls. The insolent wench looked at her derisively, and called out, "That will give you a good appetite for the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... astonishment. "You mean my brother Charles. Why, Caterine, that soft-hearted and softheaded idiot, for I can call him nothing else, has made himself a perfect fool about her, and what is worst of all, I am afraid he will break his engagement with Miss Goodwin, and marry this wench. Me! why, except that he sent me once or twice to meet her, and apologize for his not being able to keep his appointment with her, I know nothing whatsoever of the unfortunate girl, unless that, like a fool, as she is, it seems to me that ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... her way: it is a cunning wench That knows to wheedle. Burgos still maintains Its fame for noble fabrics. Since ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli

... the knight. "Could ye not see it was a wench? She in the murrey-coloured mantle—she that broke her fast with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... after all, uncle:—the wench is no better than the rest. A heavy bulk that seemed dignified only because she is too fat for levity. She walks like a blind plough-horse in a broken pasture, up and down, over and over; with a gait as rigid and deliberate as if she trod among ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... 'e fus', Masser Bob, heabben be praise, and a good conscience do 'e las'. I do wish you could make ole Plin hear dat! He nebber t'ink any good look, now-a-day, in a ole wench." ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... have one made straight! O-o-o! yeou'd a died to seen the excitement that instrer-ment made in Jargon Institoot. The head marm wanted my ortergraff, and each o' the gals a lock o' my hair. But just then, a confeounded ole woolly-headed Virginny nigger wench, cook o' the Jargon Institoot, kem in, and the moment she clapped her ole eyes on my inwention, she roared reight eout, 'O! de Lud, ef dar ain't one de ole Virginny spinnin' wheels!' I kinder had bus'ness somewheres else 'beout that time! I took ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... being L30, and Costs. And one John Gray, Cordwainer, for endeavouring to spread the Infection of the Small Pox, was sentenced to pay a Fine of L6, to suffer three months' Imprisonment, and to pay Costs." In New York in January, 1767, "A Negro Wench was executed for stealing sundry Articles out of the House of Mr. Forbes; and one John Douglass was burnt in the Hand for Stealing a Copper Kettle." In the last half of the eighteenth century it appears to have been a capital crime for ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... of Dunlow your great grandmother!" shouted Cuddy; "St. Brandon help me! the wicked wench, with that tempting bottle—why 'twas only last night—a hundred years—your great grandmother said you? Mercy on us, there has been a strange torpor over me. I must have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... that kings or princes are not too good for her—these have all had no light share; and if I live for six months I will bring that pride down to the very lowest pitch. I will degrade her till she thinks herself a servant wench." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... chitterlings, for in hams there is far more eating. And even if some devout creature had understood him amphibologically, as I believe he wished to be understood, neither he nor his brethren would have fared badly any more than the wench ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... forlorn, who dreamed of the table where diners sat, served by the cooking-wench florid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... tell truth, sir," (the Welsh blood of the Cardy peasant was now up,) "if any foreign, half Welsh, half wild Indian, sort of gentleman had sent his fine letters, asking my sweetheart's friends to turn me off, in my courting days, and prepare my wench to be his lady, instead of my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... of Acknowledgments, and Cuffey carried me home, where my Hurt, which was a Flesh Wound, was dress'd: He saw me laid on a Matrass, and left me. About Eight, a Negro Wench brought me some Kid very well drest, and leaving me, bid me good Night. Notwithstanding my Hurt, I slept tolerably well, being heartily ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... and name every wench of kitchen and laundry, as well as every one of the buxom lasses or dames whom business brought periodically to the great hall. That this person was neither of the household nor one of the usual back-door visitors, he would have seen at a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... earth's orchards for the brier beauty of a hidden vineyard! I saw the flying glories of thy cheeks, the halcyon weather of thy smile, the delicate lifting of thy bosom, the dear gaiety of thy step, and, at that moment, I mourned for thy sake that thou wert not the dullest wench in the land, for then thou hadst been spared thy miseries, thou hadst been saved the torture-boot of a lost love and a disacknowledged wifedom. Yet I could not hide from me that thou wert happy at that great moment, when he swore to love ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Guy Little!" exploded old man Packard, leaping to his feet, towering high above the little man, who looked up at him with an earnest and placid expression. "That wench, that she-devil, that Jezebel! Settin' her traps for my boy Stephen, is she? Why, man alive, she ain't fit to scrape the corral-mud off'n his boots. She's a low-down, deceitful jade, that's what she is, sired by a sheep-stealin', throat-cuttin', ornery, no-'count, worthless cuss! ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all could be brought at an instant's call, into the open ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... before her and the pangs of jealousy gnawing at her heart? How stupid to have imagined her to be one of those bovine women with large liquid eyes who, figuratively speaking, pass the major portion of their lives standing knee-deep in a pond, gazing stolidly out upon the world; a fat brown wench upon whose hip a man might confidently expect to hang his hat by the time she has attained ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... waitress, a young negro girl, born free. Next to her is Auntie Cord (a fragment of whose history I have just sent to a magazine). She is the cook; was in slavery more than forty years; and the self- satisfied wench, the last of the group, is the little baby's American nurse-maid. In the middle distance my mother-in-law's coachman (up on errand) has taken a position unsolicited to help out the picture. No, that is not true. He was waiting there a minute ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... angrily). Callest thou the illustrious one by his name? The most high Prince Holofernes, foul wench. ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett

... time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some people round to his side. "It's the wench's own fault," he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted, who assisted her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... Should so change men, that one can hardly swear They are the same!—No mortal liv'd Less weak, more grave, more temperate than he. —But who comes yonder?—Gnatho, as I live; The Captain's parasite! and brings along The Virgin for a present: oh rare wench! How beautiful! I shall come off, I doubt, But scurvily with my decrepit Eunuch. This Girl surpasses ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... observed, as we were driving over in his mail-phaeton, "I wonder if we shall see the Bellasys to-night? I know they were to come down about this time. Steady, old wench! where are you off to?" (This was to the near wheeler, who was breaking her trot.) "I think you'll admire her, Frank; but, gare a vous, she's ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... "you brazen wench, who are so eager to leave a king's side for a nameless vagrant's care! And you, sir," turning to me, and fairly trembling with rage and dread, "I will not gainsay that you have done the errand set you, but it might ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi said. Raimbaut did not regret he could not see his servant's countenance. "Time was we named it otherwise and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but let the new name stand. It is Walburga's Eve, that little, little hour of evil! and all over the world surges the full tide of hell's desire, and mischief is a-making now, apace, apace, apace. People moan in their sleep, and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... her. She might be a wench belonging to these rebels, with designs to put a knife into my lord's heart, and then we sentries would suffer. The Empress," he added simply, "seems to set good store upon my lord at present, and we know ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... put a detaining hand on Blackett. "Look here, now, an' I suppose you think I'm lyin'. If I thought that that there Aoba wench was foolin' me in any way—sech as givin' away my tobacco to a nigger buck, I'd have to wentilate her yaller hide or ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... then being mooued in his spirits, laughed at the matter, though not from the heart, as he that tooke great indignation at the dooings of the dutchesse, and pitied the case of the poore wench. But yet in fine (turning earnest to a iest) he pardoned all the parties, and aduanced the wench to high honor, farre aboue those that had rule of hir afore, so that she ruled them (willed they nilled they:) for he vsed hir as his paramour, till ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... are doing, Guy," she said at last, casting a malicious look at him, "I have purchased these letters from you, for I hate you, I repeat it, and these letters you owe to me as you would owe money promised to a wench. If you do not give them to me, I will have ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... the inn and called our host, who told me he had nothing to do with us, and that we might go to Jericho. [1] There was a ragged stable-boy about, half a sleep, who cried out to me: "The master would not move to please the Pope, because he has got a wench in bed with him, whom he has been wanting this long while." Then he asked me for a tip, and I gave him a few Venetian coppers, and told him to make the barge-man wait till I had found my slippers and returned. I went upstairs, took out a little knife as sharp as a razor, and cut the four ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... an oak, in stormy weather, I joined this rogue and wench together, And none but he who rules the thunder, Can put ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... had, early in the year 1667, made her first appearance at the playhouse, and had by her comely face and shapely figure challenged the admiration of the town. Her winsome ways, pleasant voice, and graceful dancing soon made her a favourite with the courtiers, who voted her an excellent wench; though some of her own sex, judging harshly of her, as is their wont towards each other, declared her "the most ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... foul play," replied the chief angrily. "He pretended that he could not run, else would I have put on more force. But it matters not. I will have another opportunity of trying him. Meanwhile, there is yet the heavy stone to throw. How now, wench?" he added, turning fiercely on Branwen, who had nearly hidden her face in her shawl, "do you try to hide that ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... opinion on a disease from which the Earl of Shaftesbury was suffering, which led to an operation that saved his life. Less felicitous was his experience with a certain ancilla culinaria virgo,—which I am afraid would in those days have been translated kitchen-wench, instead of lady of the culinary department,—who turned him off after she had got tired of him, and called in another practitioner. [Locke and Sydenham, p. 124. By John Brown, M. D. Edinburgh, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... her lover. You can't imagine, Tournebroche, how excellent the victuals are there. The Red Horse is as well known for its morning dinners as for the abundance of horses and carriages which it has on hire. I convinced myself of it when I followed to the stables a certain wench who seemed to be rather pretty. But she was not; it would be a truer saying to call her ugly. But I illuminated her with the colours of my longings. Such is the condition of men when left to themselves; they err wretchedly. We are all abused by empty images; we go in chase of dreams and ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... And for how long, I wonder, has this convenient shelter been inhabited? From time immemorial, perhaps; ever since the days of those others. And, after all, how little have they changed in the intervening thousands of years! The wild-eyed young wench, with her dishevelled hair, ferocious bangle-ornaments, tattooings, and nondescript blue rags open at the side and revealing charms well fitted to disquiet some robust savage—what has such a creature in common with the rest of us? Not even certain raptures, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... auctioneer, fell upon my knees, and humbly prayed him to let me just step down and bid my last sister farewell. But, instead of granting me this request, he grasped me by the neck, and in a commanding tone of voice, and with a violent oath, exclaimed, "Get up! You can do the wench no good; therefore there is no use in ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... frankness and breadth of execution, it could not be surpassed. Yet hardly elsewhere has the great master approached so near to positive vulgarity as here in the conception of the fair Europa as a strapping wench who, with ample limbs outstretched, complacently allows herself to be carried off by the Bull, making her appeal for succour merely pour la forme. What gulfs divide this conception from that of the Antiope, from Titian's earlier renderings of female loveliness, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... but one [woman] that interested me—an old negro wench. She was talking and laughing outside my door the other evening, but her laugh was so sweet and unctuous and musical—so full of breadth and goodness that I went outside and talked to her while she was scrubbing the stones. She laughed as a canary bird sings—because she couldn't help ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... look out, and actually believed that he had shot the robber; said he had done for him now, 'that ane wad plague him nae mair at ony rate.' He took it into his head at one time that he ought to be married, and having got the consent of a haverel wench to yoke with him in the silken bonds of matrimony, went to the minister several times, and asked him to perform the ceremony. At length the minister sent him away, saying that he could not and would not accommodate ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... wench,—now that's what I call hitting the nail on the head, like a right sensible woman!" cried Johnny, fetching her a slap on the shoulder, and laughing heartily. "That's doing the thing now to some tune. I'm for none ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... of the west coast, a wench, as methought, Came walking in the way, to heavenward she looked; Mercy hight that maide, a meek thing withal, A full benign birde, and buxom of speech; Her sister, as it seemed, came worthily walking, Even out ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... had started, when the Naturalists began blowing up the buildings. And then the Yardsticks had come with their weapons, hunting down the Naturalists. Or had it been that way, really? It didn't matter, now. That was in another country and besides, the wench was dead. ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... he compelled, vi et armis, a rich farmer's son to marry the daughter of a cottager, whom the young fellow had debauched. Indeed, it seems there was a promise of marriage in the case, though it could not be legally ascertained. The wench took on dismally, and her parents had recourse to Sir Launcelot, who, sending for the delinquent, expostulated with him severely on the injury he had done the young woman, and exhorted him to save her ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... and your man has not come. I don't believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. [Rises.] By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... except a kettle, was in the possession of this class. A few, however, were here who had erected log-houses, cleared a little land, and were also in the possession of a stove or two; we halted at a group of four of these little dwellings, where, under a shed, a fine negro wench was occupied frying bacon and making cakes of wheaten flour for her master's supper, who, she informed us, was absent on a hunting expedition. Within the log-huts sat the squaws of the party, all busily employed sewing ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... demands of modern servants. Constance was in despair. If Constance had not had an immense pride she would have been ready to suggest to Sophia that Amy should be asked to 'stay on.' But Constance would have accepted a modern impudent wench first. It was Maria Critchlow who got Constance out of her difficulty by giving her particulars of a reliable servant who was about to leave a situation in which she had stayed for eight years. Constance did not imagine that a servant recommended by Maria Critchlow would suit her, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... occasion. Do you know how everybody regards this amour of yours, which in one night has burst forth? How your yesterday's undertaking is everywhere talked of and ridiculed? What people think of the whim which, they say, has made you select for a wife a gipsy outcast, a strolling wench, whose noble occupation was only begging? I really blushed for you, even more than I did for myself, who am also compromised by this public scandal. Yes, I am compromised, I say, I whose daughter, being engaged to you, cannot bear to see her slighted, without taking offence ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere

... next to her by birth, and believed to have higher parts, though not yet ripe. "Na, na; what Frogman here? Frogmen ha' skinny shanks, and larks' heels, and holes down their bodies like lamperns. No sign of no frog aboot yon bairn. As fair as a wench, and as clean as a tyke. A' mought a'most been born to Flaambro'. And what gowd ha' ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... your liberty! You will soon have no one to look after but yourself!" and just as she whispered the last sentence into my ear, Mansfield came up to me, and with an oath, said, "Leave here this instant; you have been the means of my losing one hundred dollars to get this wench back,"—at the same time kicking me with a heavy pair of boots. As I left her, she gave one shriek, saying, "God be with you!" It was the last time that I saw her, and the last word I heard ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown

... very hard that winter, but I was much better contented than when I was with Drake and in the grasp of that old "nigger wench." ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... The poor little Cinder-wench! this harsh stepmother was a sore trial to her; and how often, as she sate sadly by herself, did she feel that there is no mother like our own, the dear parent whose flesh and blood we are, and who bears all our little cares and sorrows ...
— Cinderella • Henry W. Hewet

... "Go away, wench," said my lady in a hurry, "you're only fit for trade; you will not suit me for a servant." The girl went away crestfallen: in a minute, however, my lady sent me after her to see that she had something to eat before leaving the house; and, indeed, she sent for her once again, but ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... favourite of mine. I quibbled, I evaded, I was very enthusiastic and uncomfortable. It was with intense relief that I beheld the title-page of yet another volume which (silently, this time) he laid before me—The Country Wench. 'This of course I ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... wench would. English countrywomen have pretty strong nerves. You ought to know that. But why did you leave the room if you expected the owner of the trinket to return ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... marry, wench, I think thy portion is a right riddle; a man shall never finde it out: ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... and "brick-yard wench" who would not join in singing these lines was always looked upon as a "stupid donkey," and the consequence was that upon all occasions, when excitement was needed as a whip, they were "struck up;" especially would it be the case ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... husband. I looked upon my new wife, poor creature, with mingled feelings; and I must own she had not even the appearance of the poorest class of city servant-maids, but looked more like a country wench who should have been employed at a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as I know not what branch of theology; his pretty girlish Geometry of coiled and braided hair and the yet unloosed girdle of demure virginity; his maid Musica crowned with roses, and Logica, the bold-eyed and open-throated wench, hand to hip—is this the man for sententiousness? Out, out! Could any one save a humourist of high order have given Moses such a pair of horns, or set, under Music, such a shagged Tubal to belabour an anvil? The wall sings like an anthology,—a ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... fact, I know already that my son has an affair with that wench, Philaenium, next ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... simple country wench, but it would be an error to suppose that because she had been bred up in a city more diminutive than anything that ever before gave itself the name, and because she had lived among hand-looms and milking-pails, and had never seen a ball or an opera, worn a mask ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... one white," returned the poet, laughing. "I got it out of a dead jade's stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a hard world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... holding the woman still to his side, though every line of her shrinking figure spoke her abhorrence. "Do you keep your spoon in your own broth. I rede you to go on your way, lest worse befall you. This little wench has come with me and with ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a wench's tongue nebber satisfy! What for tell a whole world, when Bonnie go to bed? He sleep for heself, and he no sleep for 'e neighborhood! Dere! A man can't t'ink of ebery t'ing, in a minute. Here a ribbon long enough to hang heself—take ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... 'It is written in the legend of St. Bernard,' we are told, 'that a pretty wench that had the use of Incubus his body by the space of six or seven years in Aquitania (being belike weary of him for that he waxed old), would needs go to St. Bernard another while. But Incubus told her if she would so forsake him, he would be revenged upon her. But befal what ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... into a cab and rode home ourselves inside a 'bus. My mother was tired, so my father slipped his arm round her, telling her to lean against him, and soon she fell asleep with her head upon his shoulder. A coarse-looking wench sat opposite, her man's arm round her likewise, and she also fell asleep, her powdered face against ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... done well enough if we hadn't had to bring this red-haired wench of yours with us. Now that the girl's disappeared, it'll ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... transgressor, and is determined to put you out of the way." I have mentioned this same Goodrich, once before. He is well known as one accustomed to sell runaway negroes, as a kidnapper, who lives with a wench, and has several mulatto children, and probably does a profitable business in ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... retract my charge of foolishness, for you are plainly a wench of rare discrimination. And yet you say I do not love you! Cynthia, you are beautiful, you are perfect in all things. You are that heavenly Helen of whom I wrote, some persons say, acceptably enough—How strange it was I did not know that Helen was dark-haired ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... said Robin. "I was put upon the wrong scent: but not wilfully. You might remember a dairy wench that lived at Verner's Pride in them days, sir—Dolly, her name was; she that went and got married after to Joe Stubbs, Mr. Bitterworth's wagoner. It was she told me, sir. I used to be up there a good ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... nestling, chicken, larva, chrysalis, tadpole, whelp, cub, pullet, fry, callow; codlin, codling; foetus, calf, colt, pup, foal, kitten; lamb, lambkin^; aurelia^, caterpillar, cocoon, nymph, nympha^, orphan, pupa, staddle^. girl; lass, lassie; wench, miss, damsel, demoiselle; maid, maiden; virgin; hoyden. Adj. infantine^, infantile; puerile; boyish, girlish, childish, babyish, kittenish; baby; newborn, unfledged, new-fledged, callow. in the cradle, in swaddling ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... gracefully, without prurience or horror; perfectly well-bred, gentili, as Ariosto calls them; prudent also, according to the notions of the day, in limiting their imprudence. The adventure of Fiordispina with Ricciardetto would have branded an English serving-wench as a harlot; the behaviour of Roger towards the lady he has just rescued from the sea-monster would have blushingly been attributed by Spenser to one of his satyrs; but these were escapades quite within Ariosto's notions of what was permitted to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... a Joiner, and built up a house. K was King William, once governed this land, L was a Lady, who had a white hand. M was a Miser, and hoarded up gold, N was a Nobleman, gallant and bold. O was an Oyster Wench, and went about town, P was a Parson, and wore a black gown. Q was a Queen, who was fond of good flip, R was a Robber, and wanted a whip. S was a Sailor, and spent all he got, T was a Tinker, and mended a pot. U was an Usurer, a miserable ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... is human nature: thus does it operate in all degrees; and so does the clown, as well as his practises! Yet this sly dog knew not but the wench had a sweetheart locked up in the pantry! If the truth were known, some of the ruddy-faced dairy wenches might perhaps call him a damnation rogue, as justly as their betters of the same sex ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... lives in Brabazon Street. She telled me my poor wench went to the workhouse fra there. I'll not speak again the dead; but if her father would but ha' letten me—but he were one who had no notion—no, I'll not say that; best say nought. He forgave her on his death-bed. I daresay I did na go ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell

... clothes. One day, when we were stopping in some village, he stole the money from my knapsack, and came in the evening, in a tipsy state, to the garden where I was working. He brought with him a fat country wench, who greeted me with the following words: ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... craving impelled him on a sudden to tell this tavern-wench about Jean's legacy? Why should this thing, which he kept at arm's-length when he was alone, which he drove from him for fear of the torment it brought upon his soul, rise to his lips at this moment? And why did he allow it to overflow them, as if he needed once more to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... nurse; one who won't go rubbing her with calf's-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors' directions; which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah won't; because they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating room in the infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... is in good hands. Black Harry has bribed a cook wench, who will open the back door. They say he was to return to London this week, and if so Sunday is fixed for the affair. Five days yet, and say another week for the news to get here. In a fortnight we will be on our way to England. There, I am thirsty, and we left the bottle ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... good-nature than understanding, thinks himself obliged to fall in with all the passions and humours of his yoke-fellow. 'Do not you remember, child,' said she, 'that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?' 'Yes,' says he, 'my dear; and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza.' The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... forrard and we both heard it, sometimes like a bairn crying and sometimes like a wench in pain. I've been seventeen years to the country and I never heard seal, old or young, make a sound like that. As we were standing there on the foc'sle-head the moon came out from behind a cloud, and we both saw a sort of white figure moving across ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... excellent art. He would often- times please himself {90a} with the thoughts of what he could do in this matter, saying within himself; I can be religious, and irreligious, I can be any thing, or nothing; I can swear, and speak against swearing; I can lye, and speak against lying; I can drink, wench, be unclean, and defraud, and not be troubled for it: Now I enjoy my self, and am Master of mine own wayes, and not they of me. This I have attained with much study, great care, and more pains. ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... keeps too well hidden when about;— And she, no little pleased; that interlards, Between her exclamations at his figure, Reproof of gallantries half-laughed at hers. Anon she titters as he dons her dress Doubtless with pantomime— Head-carriage and hip-swagger. A wench, more conscious of her sex than grace, He then rejoined me, changed beyond belief, Roguish as vintage makes them; bustling helps Or hinders Chloe harness to the mule;— In fine bewitching both her age and mine. The life that in such fellows runs to waste Is like a gust that pulls about ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... attentively. I then asked her the name of the bridge, whereupon she gave a broad grin, and after some, little time replied: "Pont y Groes (the bridge of the cross)." I was about to ask her some other question when she turned away with a loud chuckle, and said something to another wench near her, who, grinning yet more uncouthly, said something to a third, who grinned too, and lifting up her hands and spreading her fingers wide, said: "Dyn oddi dir y Gogledd—a man from the north country, hee, hee!" Forthwith there was a general shout, the wenches crying: "A man from the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the whip to HIM. There are gradations in conduct; there is morality,—decency,—propriety. None of these should be violated by a bishop. A bishop should not go to a house where he may meet a young fellow leading out a wench.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, every tavern does not admit women.' JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, any tavern will admit a well-drest man and a well-drest woman; they will not perhaps admit a woman whom they see every night walking by their door, in the street. But a well-drest ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... too true, and cried out in despair to beg them to let me stay at home, and not send me from them; but my mother bade me not be a silly wench. I had always known that I was to be married in France and the queen and my half-brother, M. de Solivet, had found an excellent parti for me. I was not to embarrass matters by any folly, but I must do her credit, and not make her regret that she had ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... singing man to stand before his door day and night singing vulgar songs out of the street in praise of Dick Turpin and Molly Nog, only forcing him to put in his name of Jack Bull in the place of the Murderer or Oyster Wench therein celebrated. ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... jolly Quaker, so rosy and sly, Have righteousness, more than a wench, in thine eye; Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath, Remember the one that you met on the heath, Her name's Jimmy Barlow, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... is a landscape, by Carel Dujardin, I believe, conceived in quite a different mood, but exquisitely poetical too. A horseman is riding up a hill, and giving money to a blowsy beggar-wench. O matutini rores auraeque salubres! in what a wonderful way has the artist managed to create you out of a few bladders of paint and pots of varnish. You can see the matutinal dews twinkling in the grass, and feel the fresh, salubrious airs ("the breath of Nature blowing free," ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sound of scratching on the door, and a girl appeared,—a country wench, as broad as she was long, red-haired and bandy-legged, a wen hiding the left eye, the right so pale a blue it looked white, with monstrous thick lips and teeth ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... Hereabouts is the House wherein dwells the Mistress of my Heart; for she has Money, Boys, mind me, Money in abundance, or she were not for me—The Wench her self is good-natur'd, and inclin'd to be civil: but a Pox on't—she has a Brother, a conceited Fellow, whom the World mistakes for a fine Gentleman; for he has travell'd, talks Languages, bows with a bonne mine, and the rest; but, by Fortune, he shall entertain you with nothing ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... The famous History of Guy of Warwick; at that of Sir Bevis of Southampton; at Joaks upon Joaks, a lively work regarding the manners and customs of the aristocracy at the period of the Restoration; at the record of the amazing adventures of that lusty serving-wench Long Meg of Westminster; and at that refreshing piece of comedy known as Merry Tales concerning the Sayings and Doings of the Wise Men ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Haley," said Marks, "'est pass the hot water. Yes, sir, you say 'est what I feel and all'us have. Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart,—and she had a young un that was mis'able sickly; it had a crooked back, or something or other; and I jest gin 't away to a man that thought he'd take his chance raising on 't, being it didn't cost nothin';—never thought, yer know, of the gal's taking' ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... well done!" breathed the knight, when he found himself once more alone, "and done easier than I had looked for. Well, well, it is a happy thing the wench has found her right senses. Methinks good Peter must have been setting his charms to work, for she never could be brought to listen to him of old. He has tamed ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... "Prudence, wench!" was the reply. "It is mere pride, and the desire to be thought more rigid than any of us. Nay, I will not quit my advantage. You know well that when she has us at fault no one can, in a civil way, lay your error before you more precisely ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... without treading I trow, is as a bowyer sans bow.' Now when her words were ended, O Commander of the Faithful, she turned to her women and cried to them, 'Bring hither this moment Sa'idiyah, the kitchen-wench,' and when she came between her hands behold, she was a slave-girl, a negress, and she was the same in species and substance who came to me under the form of a Badawi woman with a face-veil of brocade covering her features. Hereupon my wife drew ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... had arrived. Colonel Verney fidgeted, sent a servant wench to look at the kitchen clock, and dispatched his secretary to an upstairs window, whence was visible a long stretch of what courtesy ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... the water having been seen to, we went to the monastery, or, as it now is, the homestead. As we entered the farmyard we found two cows fighting, and a great strapping wench belabouring them in order to separate them. "Let them alone," said the padrone; "let them fight it out here on the level ground." Then he explained to me that he wished them to find out which was mistress, and fall each of them into her ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler



Words linked to "Wench" :   doll, wencher, dame, skirt, miss, bird, missy, fille, young lady, girl, chick, young woman, fornicate



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