[a. AF. and OF. bastardie, f. bastard; see -Y.]
1. The condition of a bastard, illegitimate birth.
[1292. Britton, I. v. § 4. De bastardie et de bigamie].
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Her., E viij. His faderis armys he may bere with sych a staffe as is sayd afore: in signe of his bastardy.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. v. 75. Inferre the Bastardie of Edwards Children.
1655. Fuller, Ch.-Hist., I. 31. No Crosse-barre of Bastardy … can bolt Grace out of that Heart, wherein God will have to enter.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., V. iii. 72. Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph To the third spurious generation.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., viii. 70. Bastardy laws … put the maintenance of an illegitimate child on its putative parent.
2. Begetting of bastards, fornication.
1577. Northbrooke, Dicing (1843), 175. It is the storehouse and nurserie of bastardie.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 303. Overthrowing the foundation of the family, by such bastardy.
1839. Carlyle, Chartism, iii. 121. Any law … which has become a bounty on unthrift … bastardy and beer-drinking.
3. fig. in prec. senses.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., II. i. 138. When euery drop of blood … Is guilty of a seuerall Bastardie, If [etc.].
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 18. 34. No signs of Spuriousness or Bastardy [being] discovered in them.
† 4. Bastards collectively, bastard brood. Obs.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, III. xi. 228. Which still he hugs, and luls as tenderly As cuckold Tisus his wifes bastardie.
