释义 |
▪ I. ˈhen-peck, v. colloq. [A back-formation from hen-pecked in its participial use.] trans. Of a wife: To domineer over or rule (the husband).
1688Loyal Litany iii. in 3rd Collect. Poems (1689) 30/2 From being Henpeck'd worse at home..Libera nos. 1753Murphy Gray's Inn Jrnl. No. 52 ⁋3 An uxorious Gentle⁓man, who is sometimes a little Henpecked by his Wife. 1819Byron Juan i. xxii, But—oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual..have they not hen-peck'd you all? 1852Thackeray Esmond i. vii, That my lady was jealous and henpecked my lord. ▪ II. ˈhen-peck, n. rare. [f. prec.] †1. a. A wife who domineers over her husband. Obs.
c1801T. Selwyn Warn. to Batchelors ix. (MS.), Their Mac Tabs and their Henpecks may prate as they please. b. A husband so domineered.
1765Garrick Let. 23 May in Corr. Garrick (1831) I. 185 More of the sneaking hen-peck, than of the tender enamoured husband. 2. = Hen-pecking, the domineering of a wife.
1833Carlyle Diderot in Misc. Ess. (1888) V. 23 Dying of heartbreak coupled with henpeck. So hen-peckery, the state or condition of being henpecked.
1838Dickens O. Twist xxxvii, He had fallen..to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. 1869Harper's Mag. Mar. 508/2 Husbands flee from hen-peckery, and wives desert bearish husbands. 1958Daily Mail 15 July 3/4 Charmian Eyre..remains disarmingly human at the height of henpeckery. |