hen-pecked, ppl. a. colloq.
(ˈhɛnpɛkt)
[lit. pecked by a hen or hens: alluding to the plucking of some of the feathers of the domestic cock by his hens.]
a. Domineered over by, or subject to the rule of, a wife.
| a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) II. 104 The henpect Man rides behind his Wife, and lets her wear the Spurs and govern the Reins. 1690 Dryden Amphitryon ii. ii, Was ever poor deity so hen-pecked as I am! 1697 ― Virg. Past. iii. 49 A Step-dame too I have, a cursed She Who rules my hen-peck'd Sire and orders me. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 479 ¶5 Socrates, who is by all Accounts the undoubted Head of the Sect of the Hen-peck'd. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. I. 59 An obedient henpecked husband. 1923 D. H. Lawrence Kangaroo i. 4 A little red-faced man, rather beery and hen-pecked looking. 1930 G. B. Shaw Apple Cart Interlude 57 Orinthia: Why are you so afraid of your wife? You are the laughing stock of London, you poor henpecked darling. 1939 ― In Good King Charles's Golden Days i. 57 What! that henpecked booby! Ibid. 58 He may be henpecked: what married man is not? |
b. transf. Cf. hen-frigate in hen n. 8.
| 1695 Congreve Love for L. iv. xiii, I believe he that marries you will go to Sea in a Hen-peck'd Frigat. |