bawd

• baud
• baude

From Middle English bawde, baude, from Old French baud (“bold, lively, jolly, gay”). Doublet of bold.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɔːd/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) enPR: bôd, IPA^(key): /bɔd/
• Rhymes: -ɔːd
• Homophones: board, bored (non-rhotic)

bawd (plural bawds)

1. (now archaic or historical) A person who keeps a house of prostitution, or procures women for prostitution; a procurer, a madame.
   • 1717, Ned Ward, British Wonders:

     As Whores decay'd and past their Labours, / Turn Bawds, and so assist their Neighbours.

   • 2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 76:

     Compared with their opponents, bawds and their associates increasingly had deeper pockets and greater confidence in manipulating the law.

2. A lewd person.

• pimp

bawd (comparative more bawd, superlative most bawd)

1. (obsolete) Joyous; riotously gay.

bawd (third-person singular simple present bawds, present participle bawding, simple past and past participle bawded)

1. (archaic) To procure women for lewd purposes.

• BWAD, dawb

From Middle Welsh mawd < Proto-Celtic *mā-to- < Proto-Indo-European *mē-. Compare Breton meud and Cornish meus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbau̯d/

bawd m or f (plural bodiau)

1. thumb
2. big toe
3. claw (of crab or lobster)
4. (in slate quarrying) a flaw or crack in the slate

   Synonyms: crych, las, bachiad

5. a bar projecting from rock face to which ropes are attached
6. (of a railway or tramway) points, turnouts