Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woman who keeps a brothel; a madam.
- n. A woman prostitute.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A procurer or procuress; a person who keeps a house of prostitution, and conducts illicit intrigues: now usually applied only to women.
- To pander; act as procurer or procuress.
- To foul or dirty.
- n. A hare.
Wiktionary
- n. A person who keeps a house of prostitution, or procures women for a lewd purpose; a procurer or procuress.
- n. A lewd person.
- adj. obsolete Joyous; riotously gay.
- v. archaic To procure women for lewd purposes.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A person who keeps a house of prostitution, or procures women for a lewd purpose; a procurer or procuress; a lewd person; -- usually applied to a woman.
- v. To procure women for lewd purposes.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money
Etymologies
- From Middle English bawde, baude, noun form of Old French baud ("bold, lively, jolly, gay"), from Old Low Frankish *bald ("bold, proud"), from Proto-Germanic *balþaz (“strong, bold”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-, *bʰlē- (“to inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old High German bald ("bold, bright"), Old English beald ("bold, brave, confident, strong"). More at bold. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, probably from Old French baud, merry, licentious, from Old Low German bald, bold, merry; see bhel-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Lussurioso undermines her first, more for her being a woman and a mother: "The name [of 'bawd']/is so in league with age that nowadays/It does eclipse three-quarters of a mother.”
“If you're a fan of vampires, but don't want to see high school kids staring longingly at each other before taking vows of chastity, then we highly recommend that you tune in for this adult-oriented "bawd" ville horror-fest.”
“(1. 3.147-149) and even undermines her motherly status, observing that bawds are often older women, and mothers are older women (usually): "The name [of 'bawd']/is so in league with age that nowadays/It does eclipse three-quarters of a mother.”
Draft: Women's Negotiations of Moral and Material Status in The Revenger's Tragedy
“bawd:" Cf. Letter 60, note 14 and Feb. 18, 1712-13.”
The Journal to Stella
“12 Forster reads, "devil's brood"; probably the second word is "bawd:" Cf. Letter 60, note 14 and Feb. 18, 1712-13.”
“New Haven was a feast of fat things—now the young wife in "La Ronde," now the bawd in "Pericles," now a play by Euripides, now by Strindberg, now the leading lady, now the ingénue.”
“But Shakespeare makes him live with himself and the consequences of his human weakness (not hypocrisy -- the Duke is hypocritical when he plays bawd to Mariana, but Angelo knows exactly what he's doing).”
“As Martin Lindstrom reminds us in "Brandwashed," marketers make sneaky appeals to our fears and desires, leverage our social connections to maximize peer pressure, dazzle us with tinfoil celebrity and lure us with sexual come-ons that would embarrass a bawd.”
“Best of all is the wonderful, pivotal scene in which Tilly Tremayne's well-judged, shrewd widow takes on Harriet Walter's glittering bawd at chess.”
“I took him off to a very high-priced place I knew in St John's Wood, swore the old bawd to secrecy, and stated the randy little pig's requirements.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bawd’.
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
Stalking Darkness
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Stalking Darkness.
inquest, halyard, catamount, occlude, founder, more, grouse, grapple, water butt, antepenultimate, palimpsest, hob and 196 more...
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I, Claudius
Words taken from I, Claudius by Robert Graves.
evocation, aureus, sestertii, denarii, assegai, pilum, framea, sibyl, propitiatory, duenna, tyrannicide, maggoty and 136 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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annscann's list
My words, generally
bavarois, bawbee, bawd, bawdry, libertine, russophobe, rubicund, gossamer, persnickety, claptrap, gesticulate, schadenfreudian and 199 more...
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Let's talk about sex
A collection of words about doing the nasty.
prurient, odalisque, soubrette, gravid, lochia, xenogamy, syngamy, zygote, pintle, hexaploid, seminal, hetaera and 232 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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Permutations
There are 17576 different sequences of three letters (26 x 26 x 26). How many of them occur in words? General rules of engagement: mononyms only, lower case preferred to upper case, short preferred...
aaargh, niqaabi, Isaac, raad, baaed, haaf, laager, aah, kamaaina, Naajaat, aak, aalii and 637 more...
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Strumpets, Street People, and Scallywags
Derogatory terms for your classic band of rascals and wenches
minx, bawd, harlot, harridan, rapscallion, scapegrace, scullion, slattern, strumpet, trollop, varlet, wag-halter and 26 more...
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Ooooh, burn!
Obscure insults
dotard, nescient, goatsucker, scrofulous, faineant, pinguid, milquetoast, sleazo, varlet, jollux, rixatrix, sciolist and 46 more...
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Sluts, Bitches, and Goddesses
Words for women.
floozie, whore, cunt, tart, trull, ianfu, demimondaine, demimonde, ball-buster, ball-breaker, bar girl, b-girl and 84 more...
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wfrank's Words
phantasmagorical, delicious, deluge, twee, loquacious, mirage, illicit, elocution, bastion, voracious, viscous, verisimilitude and 16 more...
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live thriving words
IE roots of bhel- and a few others
bless, blossom, foil, foliage, folio, folium, cinquefoil, defoliate, exfoliate, feuilleton, perfoliate, milfoil and 67 more...
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Zev_rose's Words
pulchritudinous, onomatopoeia, epitome, hyperbole, curmudgeon, pagoda, masochistic, sadistic, quiescent, vicissitude, zapatos, schadenfreude and 15 more...
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Fireships and Fizgigs
This list is dedicated to names for women of easy virtue (basically prostitutes and "other women"). I have resisted making such a list until now; the abundance of such terms, and the relative pauci...
lightskirt, legby, parnel, poplet, punk, shortheel, doxy, drossel, fizgig, giglot, hiren, bawd and 80 more...
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batmasterson's Words
adumbrate, crepuscular, pulchritude, vainglorious bast..., bawd, enervate, gorn, caribou, vorpal, spork, defenestration, gambol and 61 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bawd.
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