WRETCH • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Wretch

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noun

Wretch n.

A miserable person; one profoundly unhappy. "The wretch that lies in woe." "Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?"

One sunk in vice or degradation; a base, despicable person; a vile knave; as, a profligate wretch. Note: Wretch is sometimes used by way of slight or ironical pity or contempt, and sometimes to express tenderness; as we say, poor thing. "Poor wretch was never frighted so."

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Etymology of 'Wretch'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books

... By the Gods that protect purity! call her not woman! Did she not prompt the wretch to poison his own son! Oh! call her anything but woman! But what—what—in the name of all that is good or holy, can have brought you to know ...

— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... want the poor wretch's life; only to save our own. Now, what next? We'd better lie still for a bit to see if they ...

— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... Ferguson's, and was listening again to Wallis Plimpton's cynical amusement as to how he and Everett Constable and Eldon Parr himself had "gat out" before the crash; "got out" with all the money of the wretch who now stood before him! His ...

— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... do that. There is, in particular, a woman among them who passes as the wife of the lancer whom the captain killed yesterday. She is dressed like a lancer, and she tortured me the most yesterday, and suggested burning me; and it was she who set fire to the wood. Oh! the wretch, the brute! Ah! how I am suffering! My loins, my arms!" and he fell back gasping and exhausted, writhing in his terrible agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and we all shed tears of ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... foot in it once. That's a d—d underhand thing to do, by the way—coming round to sound a fellow upon the woman you are going to marry. You deserve anything you get. Then of course you rush and tell her, and she takes care to make it pleasant for the poor spiteful wretch the first time he calls. I will do you the justice to say, however, that you don't seem to have told Madame de Cintre; or if you have she's uncommonly magnanimous. She was very nice; she was tremendously ...

— The American • Henry James

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