Etymology: Of uncertain origin: the original sense shows no approach to that of Old French baud , baude , ‘bold, lively, gay, merry’ (see baude adj.), 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 Middle English or French; nor is the French word found as a noun. The earliest instance yet found occurs in Piers Plowman, 1362, where one manuscript reads bawdstrot n. Bawd may not improbably be an abbreviation of that word, which is found in French a century earlier.

Etymology: Perhaps the same word as badde , bad n.¹ a cat, or a contraction of baudrons, or otherwise related to the latter; compare the English use of puss, and the Scots use of malkin, for both hare and cat.

Etymology: compare bawdy adj.¹

Etymology: < bawd n.¹