1695. Congreve, Love for Love, iv., 13. I believe he that marries you will go to sea in a hen-pecked frigate.
1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, Pt. I., ch. v. He had a termagant wife, and, as the neighbours said, was playing henpecked!
1712. Spectator, No. 479. Socrates, who is by all accounts the undoubted head of the sect of the hen-pecked.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th Ed.). Hen-pecked, a man that is over-awed by his wife, and dares do nothing disagreeable to her inclinations.
1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, l. 27. I shall never presume to despise or censure any poor man for suffering himself to be henpecked, conscious how I myself am obliged to truckle to a domestic demon.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xxxvii. He had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery.
1857. A. Trollope, Barchester Towers, ch. iii. But Mrs. Proudie is not satisfied with such home dominion, and stretches her power over all his movements, and will not even abstain from things spiritual. In fact, the bishop is hen-pecked.
Hen’s-arsehole.—See Mouth.
Hen-snatcher, subs. (American).—A chicken thief.