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The Collaborative International Dictionary
hen-peck

henpeck \hen"peck`\, hen-peck \hen"-peck`\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Henpecked; p. pr. & vb. Henpecking.] To bother persistently with trivial complaints; to subject to petty authority; -- said of a woman who thus treats her male companion, especially of wives who thus dominate their husbands. Commonly used in the past participle (often adjectively); as, henpecked for years, he finally left her.

WordNet
hen-peck

v. bother persistently with trivial complaints; "She nags her husband all day long" [syn: nag, peck]

Usage examples of "hen-peck".

They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use to a mere earthly lover.

They were spirited to Asia, spirited to Germany, so spirited to Great Britain that the international attitude of the mother country to her great daughter was constantly compared in contemporary caricature to that between a hen-pecked husband and a vicious young wife.