Henpeck

//ˈhɛnpɛk// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A man who is meekly subservient to his wife. rare

    "One can't swear that Dewan Bahadur Yama Dharma Rao was a henpeck ; nor could be said that the practical Lady was a cockpeck."

Verb
  1. 1
    To nag persistently.

    "But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?"

  2. 2
    to peck or peck at another bird.

    "Mrs Allsop and her bar-blue brother travelled well together in good times, but after they ducketed she would chase him from niche to niche, henpecking him while Monte tried to collar them and collect their rings."

Synonyms

All synonyms
beat downbreakbrowbeatbugbulldozebully

Example

More examples

"But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?"

Etymology

From hen + peck.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.