Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A woman who keeps a brothel; a madam.
  • noun A woman prostitute.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun A hare.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To procure women for lewd purposes.
  • noun 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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who keeps a house of prostitution, or procures women for a lewd purpose; a procurer or procuress.
  • noun A lewd person.
  • adjective obsolete Joyous; riotously gay.
  • verb archaic To procure women for lewd purposes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, probably from Old French baud, merry, licentious, from Old Saxon bald, bold, merry; see bhel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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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."

    Final drafting stuff: fantasyecho 2008

  • 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.

    IGN TV 2009

  • (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 fantasyecho 2008

  • "bawd:" Cf. Letter 60, note 14 and Feb. 18, 1712-13.

    The Journal to Stella Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745 1901

  • 12 Forster reads, "devil's brood"; probably the second word is "bawd:" Cf. Letter 60, note 14 and Feb. 18, 1712-13.

    The Journal to Stella Jonathan Swift 1706

  • 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).

    Measure For Measure deliasherman 2010

  • 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.

    The Amygdala As Sales Tool Eric Felten 2011

  • 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.

    The Independent-Film Character Joanne Kaufman 2011

  • 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).

    Measure For Measure deliasherman 2010

  • 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.

    Women Beware Women; Bingo 2010

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