The world had wanted many an idle song.
Pope, Lines to Arbuthnot.
Wench. In Middle English this term (in the older form ‘wenchel’), like ‘girl,’ ‘coquette,’ ‘slut,’ ‘flirt,’ and so many more, might be ascribed to either sex; and when afterwards restrained to one, was rather a word of familiarity, or even of passion, than of slight and contempt, which now it has grown to be. See Mayhew-Skeat’s Dict. of Middle English.
And, wretched wench, she thinks she has obtained such a thing
As both to Progne and herself should joy and comfort bring.
Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. vi.
O, ill-starred wench,
Pale as thy smock, when we shall meet at compt
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.
Shakespeare, Othello, act v. sc. 2.