a. Obs. or dial. Forms: 4 bausand, 6 bawsonde, 6–8 bawsand, 8 bawsint, baws’nt, 8–9 bassen’d, 9 bauson’d. [a. OF. bausant, -ssant, -sent, -cent, balcent, also bauchant, baulchant, and (without final t) bauzan, -sen, -sain, -çain, black and white spotted, piebald, a word of doubtful form and etymology, but of which the forms without -t correspond to Pr. bausan, It. balzano, white-spotted (Baretti), white-footed (Minsheu), whence also mod.F. balzan ‘black or bay (horse) with white feet’ (Littré). The word appears also in med.L. as bausendus, bausennus, bauchantus, from Fr. In view of the It. and Pr., the OF. forms in -nt are not easy to account for, but they seem to be the source of the ME. bausand, though later spelling assimilates the word to ppl. adjs. in -ed, as if formed on bawson.
(For the ulterior etymology there is nothing satisfactory. Conjectures may be seen in Boehmer De colorum nominibus equinorum in Roman. Studien vol. I; in Diez, who referred balzano to balza ‘border, fringe’; and in Devic (Littré, Suppl.) who has pointed out the striking identity of meaning between bausant and Arab. ablaq, fem. balqā; but notwithstanding this, the forms of the Arabic and Romanic words cannot (at present at least) be phonetically reconciled.)]
Of animals: Having white spots on a black or bay ground; esp. (in modern use) having a white patch on the forehead, or a white stripe down the face.
c. 1320. Durham Wills (1835), I. 19. Quidam equus bausand.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, V. x. 40. A hors of Trace dapill gray … With bawsand face.
1549. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 131. A bawsonde curtall nagge.
1786. Burns, Twa Dogs, 31. A faithful tyke … His honest sonsie baws’nt face.
1807–10. Tannahill, Poems (1846), 12. Bauson’d Crummock’s broken frae the sta’.
1837. Scott, in Lockhart (1839), I. 93. A bow of Kye and a bassen’d (brindled) bull.
