henpeck

present singular third person henpecks · participle present henpecking · participle past henpecked · past henpecked · alternative hen-peck · alternative hen peck

1. chiefly by a wifeTo nag persistently.

   Laura didn't have to hen-peck the man; he was a self-made wimp.

   2014, Jaqueline Girdner, A Sensitive Kind of Murder

   5 more examples

   But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?

   1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, (please specify the stanza number)

   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.

   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

   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.

   1876, Emma Jane Worboise, “The Countess at Home”, in Lady Clarissa, London: James Clarke & Co., […]; Hodder and Stoughton, […], →OCLC, page 192

   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.

   1945, Pierre Paul Ebeyer, Gems of the Vieux Carre, page 77

   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.

   1995, Betty Malz, Women in Tune, page 88

2. To peck or peck at another bird.

   Mrs Allsop and her bar-blue brother travelled well together in good times, but after they ducketed she would chase him from niche to niche, henpecking him while Monte tried to collar them and collect their rings.

   1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 104

plural henpecks

1. rareA man who is meekly subservient to his wife.

   One can't swear that Dewan Bahadur Yama Dharma Rao was a henpeck ; nor could be said that the practical Lady was a cockpeck.

   1953, B. V. P., Chronicles of Dewan Bahadur, Yama Dharma Rao, page 44

   1 more example

   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.

   1985, James Mallahan Cain, Roy Hoopes, Michael Hinden, 60 Years of Journalism, page 40