Wretch

The word has undergone a notable semantic change, showing three stages of meaning. From its root sense in Anglo-Saxon wrecca it originally signified an exile; then from Middle English a miserable or deprived person; and finally a despicable, mean, or contemptible person. This shift in attitude from sympathy at deprivation to contempt is quite a common trend, found in everyday words like poor and fool , as well as rarer terms like archaic caitiff , derived from captive . The semantic scholar Stephen Ullmann discusses the latter case in more detail (1962, 231-32).

The Anglo-Saxon condition of being exiled or banished was extremely ignominious, usually a consequence of treachery or cowardice, thus giving the word its initial negative emotive quality. The second sense, memorably used in King Lear’s famous expression of sympathy for “poor naked wretches” in the storm scene of Shakespeare’s tragedy (III iv 28), is still current. The term could and still can be used without an article in exclamations like “You wretch!,” with a variety of tones, including commiseration or even humor. Othello’s strange comment to Desdemona is a typical example of problematic tone: “Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee” (III iii 90). Usually the preceding adjective rather than the term itself indicates the sense: these can include poor, little, perfidious, wicked . The term can also be used simply to express exasperation, as in “That wretch of a plumber has not turned up.”

Wretch in the emotive sense has remained largely within the provenance of British English, where it is now rather old-fashioned, being more frequently used by the elderly. It is uncommon in other varieties of English, being unlisted in American dictionaries of slang.