(archaic, or, dialectal) Used as a term of endearment for a female person, especially a wife, daughter, or girlfriend: darling, sweetheart.
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When I am dead, good Wench, / Let me be vs'd with Honor; ſtrew me ouer / With Maiden Flowers, that all the world may know / I was a chaſte Wife, to my Graue: [...]
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1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 226, column 2:
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The mother held her tight, / Saying hard between her teeth—'Why wench, why wench, / The squire speaks to you now—the squire's too good; / He means to set you up, and comfort us. / Be mannerly at least.'
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1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Third Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 126: