“Studs,” “dudes” and “fellas,’” are all shorthand ways to refer to guys, boys or men. Women can be called “ladies,” “chicks” or “girls” — I prefer the former, of course — but also, and more quaintly, “wenches.”

Yes, “wench” does possess a certain piratical feel, and seems out of place in our contemporary language, almost like it belongs in an old Errol Flynn film — “where’s my pint of ale and potato wedges, serving wench?!” I must thank my friend Joshua Probert, seconded by Myles Gardiner and Erin Snowberger, for suggesting this rapscallion of a word.

A wench is indeed a “girl, maid or young woman,” particularly of the “rustic or working class,” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. In ye ol’ days of yore, a wench was a female servant, maidservant or serving maid; the word comes from the Middle English wenchel, referring to a “child” of either gender, from the Old English word wencel, also meaning “child” (but also “servant,” or “common woman”), according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

In regard to its strictly girlish meaning, it first popped up in the 1200s, with scattered showings throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.

A good early example of this can be found in Nicolas Udall’s 1548 translation of Erasmus’ paraphrase of the Gospel of Luke, with this line from the first chapter, “To whom it had been an happie chaunce to haue brought foorth a wenche, but a muche more luckie happe it was, to haue brought foorth a soonne” (forgive, as usual, the way things are spelled before dictionaries; read the “u’s” as “v’s”). Udall (c. 1505-1556) was an Oxford-educated playwright, tutor, translator and fan of the Reformation, who nonetheless managed to stay on Queen “Bloody” Mary’s good side (r. 1553–58).

The more countrified version of wench came along in the 1500s, as seen in this excerpted line from Gabriel Harvey’s 1575 Letter-book, “She was but a milkmaide, and a plaine cuntrie wench.” Harvey (c. 1550-1630) was a persnickety Cambridge-educated scholar and writer known for his friendship with the great English poet Edmund Spenser, or so says the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

But it’s not all quaintness with wench; another meaning had emerged by the Elizabethan era: that of a “wanton woman” (or mistress), again defined by the OED, this time as a “wanton wench” or a “wench of the stews.”

This can be seen in about 1590, in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, in Act 4, Scene 3, when Dromio of Syracuse encounters the Courtesan, “... she is the devil’s dam; and here she comes in the habit of a light wench,” he says.

A somewhat happier definition — if also somewhat archaic — is a term of endearment for one’s daughter, wife or sweetheart, as seen in Sir Walter Scott’s 1826 Woodstock, or the Cavalier, with this line from the second chapter, “‘I fear ye lie, wench,’ said her father.”

I’d suggest using “wench” to address one’s female companions with caution, but if you do, I’d also use this last meaning, as it’s the best in this humble word-hunter’s opinion.

However, I wouldn’t call a waitress, a female police officer, a professor or, heaven forbid, your mom, a “wench” if you value your life. But then again, I suppose you could, and just blame me. If you have word ideas, please send them to features@dailyuw.com; until next time, cheers!

Reach columnist Will Mari at features@dailyuw.com