henpeck
/ˈhɛnˌpɛk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To nag persistently.
noun
A man who is meekly subservient to his wife.
Example Sentences
- "But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?"
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "Laura didn't have to hen-peck the man; he was a self-made wimp."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈhɛnˌpɛk/
- British English: /ˈhɛnpɛk/