wretch

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wrecche,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English wrecca, also wræcca,^[6][5][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *wrakjô (“exile, fugitive, warrior”),^{[1][2][9][10]} which Hoad gives as West Germanic *wrakjan-.^[11] It is related to wrecan (“to drive out, punish”), the source of wreak,^{[9][5][7][11]} and Barnhart traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *wreg-.^[9][1] Its cognates include Old Saxon wrekkio (“exile”), applied to the Magi,^[6] Old High German reccheo (“exile, adventurer, knight errant”),^[6][11][5] Middle High German recke and German Recke (“warrior, hero”).^[6][2][12] Klein compares garçon, which Wiktionary calls a doublet.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

An exile, one driven from his own country: Barnhart dates wrecca to about 725, in Beowulf,^[9] where Klaeber glosses it as exile, adventurer or hero.^[13] Bosworth–Toller also gives a stranger or pilgrim.^[8] The sense of a person in misery and that of a vile person are both already recorded in Old English.^[6][8]

Semantic evolution

The word went from the banished person to the miserable one, and then, with condemnation for presumed misconduct, to the despicable one, all within Old English.^[6][2][8] Etymonline points to the state of the outcast in poems such as The Wanderer.^[2] The exile sense was gone by about 1450.^[6][12] The German word went the other way, as the OED notes in calling the contrast remarkable: the Recke of German poetry is a warrior or hero,^[6][2] revived, according to Weekley, by Wieland in the 18th century.^[14] Weekley and Etymonline compare the sense development of German Elend (“misery”), from Old High German elilenti (“sojourn in a foreign land, exile”).^[14][2] The word could be used playfully or with slight pity from before 1500, and Weekley sets Pepys's regular "my wife, poor wretch" beside Othello's "Excellent wretch!".^[6][14] Around 1900 it was still a word of endearment or sympathy in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire, also in the form wratch.^[15] From 1303 it also meant a miser, a use that later became chiefly Scottish.^[6][15] Johnson (1755) gave both main modern senses, "a miserable mortal" and "a worthless sorry creature".^[16] American campus slang of 1989 used it for an involuntary celibate.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 725 – wrecca, an exile, in Beowulf.^[9]
• c. 1175 – wrecche without an article and as a term of address, in the Ormulum and the Lambeth Homilies.^[6][9]
• before 1300 – applied to animals, birds or insects.^[6]
• 1303 – a miser (obsolete by 1646).^[6]
• c. 1330 – as a term of abuse, in Bevis of Hampton.^[6]
• 1400s – spellings with t begin to appear.^[9]
• before 1500 – a person or little creature, with playful depreciation or slight pity.^[6]
• before 1513 – verb, to make miserable.^[6]
• before 1598 – verb, to be or become miserly, in Scotland (obsolete by 1633).^[6][15]
• 1688 – without any serious imputation of bad qualities, in Prior.^[6]
• 1989 – in American campus slang, an involuntary celibate.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deeply unhappy or unfortunate person: The flood left the poor wretches with nothing.^[5][18][6]
2. A despicable or vile person: That wretch sold his own brother's horse.^[5][18][6]
3. A child, pet or other creature in some slight misfortune, spoken of with pity or playful affection.^[5][6]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1450) An exile or banished person.^{[6][12][11][8]}
5. (obsolete, 1303–1646) A miser.^[6][11][15]

Adjective

1. (obsolete, Old English–1596) Poor, miserable, deeply afflicted.^[6][3][19]

Verb

1. (obsolete, Scottish) To be or become miserly.^[6][15]

Word family

• wretched

Related words

• wreak
• garçon
• retch

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists wretch and its homophone retch as easily confused,^[20] and in dialect the English Dialect Dictionary enters wretch as a spelling of that verb.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Klaeber, Fr., ed. (1922), Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, Boston: D. C. Heath
14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b c d e f Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
20. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House