释义 |
▪ I. bawd, n.1|bɔːd| Forms: 4–5 bauude, 4–7 baude, 4–6 bawde, 6 bawed, 6–7 baud, 6– bawd. [Of uncertain origin: the original sense shows no approach to that of OF. baud, baude, ‘bold, lively, gay, merry’ (see baude), to which it has often been referred: even allowing that ‘gay’ might have passed into the sense of ‘wanton, licentious, personally unchaste,’ no trace of such sense appears either in ME. or Fr.; nor is the Fr. word found as a n. The earliest instance yet found occurs in Piers Plowman, 1362, where one MS. reads bawdstrot. Bawd may not improbably be an abbreviation of that word, which is found in Fr. a century earlier.] One employed in pandering to sexual debauchery; a procurer or procuress; orig. in a more general sense, and in the majority of passages masculine, a ‘go-between,’ a pander; since c 1700 only feminine, and applied to a procuress, or a woman keeping a place of prostitution.
1362Langl. P. Pl. A. iii. 42 And eke be þi Bawde, and Bere wel þin ernde. [One MS. has bawdstrot; texts B, C, bedeman, bedman (messenger).] c1374Chaucer Troylus ii. 304 For me were lever, that ye, and I, and he, Were hangid, than I [i.e. Pandarus] sholde be his bawde. 1386― Friar's T. 54 He was A theef, and eek a somnour, and a baude [v.r. bawde]. c1440Promp. Parv. 27 Bawde, leno. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 83/1 Thenne Vago his bawde wente in to his preuy chambre. 1541Act 33 Hen. VIII, xxi. §1 That baude the lady Jane Rochford, by whose meanes Culpeper came thither. 1642Rogers Namaan 303 Bauds and Pandars to their Masters. 1706Phillips, Bawd, a leud Woman that makes it her Business to debauch others for Gain; a Procuress. 1771Smollett Humph. Cl. (1815) 222 Where she stuck like a bawd in the pillory. 1842Longfellow Sp. Stud. i. i, A vile, shameless bawd, Whose craft was to deceive the young and fair. b. fig. He who or that which panders to any evil design or vicious practice.
1607Hieron Wks. I. 185 The mercy of God..is made..a Baude to all manner of vngodlinesse. 1688Ld. Delamere Wks. 12 Ignorant Ambitious Clergy, who in hopes of preferment have turned Bawds to Arbitrary Power. 1785Burke Nab. Arcot's Debts Wks. IV. 285 Their affected purity..becomes pander and bawd to the unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of usury and extortion. ▪ II. † bawd, n.2 dial.|bɔːd| [Perh. the same word as badde, bad n., a cat, or a contraction of baudrons, or otherwise related to the latter; cf. the Eng. use of puss, and the Sc. use of malkin, for both hare and cat.] A hare.
[1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. ii. iv. 13 Mercutio. A baud, a baud, a baud. So ho. Romeo. What hast thou found? Mer. No Hare sir, vnlesse a Hare sir in a Lenten pie, etc.] 1785Poems in Buchan Dial. 23, I saw you rin awa' like bawds. (‘This is the common name for a hare, Aberd. Used in the same sense, Roxb.’ Jamieson. Also in Fife.) ▪ III. † bawd, v.1 Obs. In 6 baud. [cf. bawdy a.1] trans. To befoul or dirty.
c1529Skelton El. Rum. 90 Dyrt, That baudeth her skirt. ▪ IV. bawd, v.2 arch. or Obs.|bɔːd| Also 7 baud. [f. bawd n.1] intr. To pander; also fig.
1651J. C[leveland] Poems 39 To whose viler ends Your pow'r hath bauded. 1712Steele Spect. No. 266 ⁋2 Lucippe..bawds at the same time for the whole Court. |