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 sb. 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.
1362. Langl., 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).]
c. 1386. Chaucer, Troylus, II. 304. For me were lever, that ye, and I, and he, Were hangid, than I [i.e. Pandarus] sholde be his bawde. Ibid. (1386), Frere’s T., 54. He was A theef, and eek a somnour, and a baude [v.r. bawde].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 27. Bawde, leno.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 83/1. Thenne Vago his bawde wente in to his preuy chambre.
1541. Act 33 Hen. VIII., xxi. § 1. That baude the lady Jane Rochford, by whose meanes Culpeper came thither.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 303. Bauds and Pandars to their Masters.
1706. Phillips, Bawd, a leud Woman that makes it her Business to debauch others for Gain; a Procuress.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 222. Where she stuck like a bawd in the pillory.
1842. Longf., 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.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 185. The mercy of God … is made … a Baude to all manner of vngodlinesse.
1688. Ld. Delamere, Wks., 12. Ignorant Ambitious Clergy, who in hopes of preferment have turned Bawds to Arbitrary Power.
1785. Burke, 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.
