bawd

• baud
• baude

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- (“to inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old High German bald (“bold, bright”), Old English beald (“bold, brave, confident, strong”). More at bold.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɔːd/
• (US) enPR: bôd, IPA^(key): /bɔd/
• Rhymes: -ɔːd

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 2013, p. 76:

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

2. A lewd person.

• bawdship

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.

• dawb

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

bawd m (plural bodiau)

1. thumb
2. big toe
3. (of a crab or lobster) claw
4. hoof
5. (in slate quarrying) a flaw or crack in the slate
6. a bar projecting from rock face to which ropes are attached
7. (of a railway or tramway) points, turnouts