▪ 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).
| 1688 Loyal Litany iii. in 3rd Collect. Poems (1689) 30/2 From being Henpeck'd worse at home..Libera nos. 1753 Murphy Gray's Inn Jrnl. No. 52 ¶3 An uxorious Gentle⁓man, who is sometimes a little Henpecked by his Wife. 1819 Byron Juan i. xxii, But—oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual..have they not hen-peck'd you all? 1852 Thackeray 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.
| c 1801 T. Selwyn Warn. to Batchelors ix. (MS.), Their Mac Tabs and their Henpecks may prate as they please. |
b. A husband so domineered.
| 1765 Garrick 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.
| 1833 Carlyle Diderot in Misc. Ess. (1888) V. 23 Dying of heartbreak coupled with henpeck. |
So hen-peckery, the state or condition of being henpecked.
| 1838 Dickens O. Twist xxxvii, He had fallen..to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. 1869 Harper's Mag. Mar. 508/2 Husbands flee from hen-peckery, and wives desert bearish husbands. 1958 Daily Mail 15 July 3/4 Charmian Eyre..remains disarmingly human at the height of henpeckery. |