henpeck

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English

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Etymology

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From hen +‎ peck.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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henpeck (third-person singular simple present henpecks, present participle henpecking, simple past and past participle henpecked)

  1. (chiefly by a wife) To nag persistently.
    • 1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: [] Thomas Davison, [], →OCLC, canto I, (please specify the stanza number):
      But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter LIV, in The History of Pendennis. [], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, [], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      He wears a beard, and he likes his women to be slaves. What man doesn’t? What man would be henpecked, I say? We will cut off all the heads in Christendom or Turkeydom rather than that.
    • 1876, Emma Jane Worboise, “The Countess at Home”, in Lady Clarissa, London: James Clarke & Co., []; Hodder and Stoughton, [], →OCLC, page 192:
      I don't want to hen-peck you ! Hen-pecking is shocking bad taste. But I won't be a slighted, neglected wife; I have a spirit of my own, and I won't meekly submit to be ignored.
    • 1945, Pierre Paul Ebeyer, Gems of the Vieux Carre, page 77:
      Well, one never hears a woman boast that she henpecks her husband, even though there are many, for the reason that she realizes it is wrong.
    • 1995, Betty Malz, Women in Tune, page 88:
      We have friends who thought it was cute when their daughter "hen-pecked" her husband. But, when their son married a spicy little gal who tried to hen-peck their son, they were very angry.
    • 2014, Jaqueline Girdner, A Sensitive Kind of Murder:
      Laura didn't have to hen-peck the man; he was a self-made wimp.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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henpeck (plural henpecks)

  1. (rare) A man who is meekly subservient to his wife.
    • 1953, B. V. P., Chronicles of Dewan Bahadur, Yama Dharma Rao, page 44:
      One can't swear that Dewan Bahadur Yama Dharma Rao was a henpeck ; nor could be said that the practical Lady was a cockpeck.
    • 1985, James Mallahan Cain, Roy Hoopes, Michael Hinden, 60 Years of Journalism, page 40:
      The moment he allows the emphasis to swing the other way he becomes a sit-by-the-fire, a cockerel, a drone, a henpeck. A woman steps into this man's sphere at her peril.