Forms: 6 bawdye, bawdie, 6–7 baudie, baudy, 6– bawdy. [f. BAWD sb. + -Y. Probably often associated in sense with prec.]
1. Of, pertaining to, or befitting a bawd; lewd, obscene, unchaste. (Usually applied to language.)
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge (1848), 209. Baudy balades full of … wanton wylde gestis.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whis., v. 2137. The chamber wher you lay your head With baudie pictures round about doe spread.
c. 1765. Burke, On Drama, Wks. X. 158. Listening to a bawdy story from his host.
2. absol. quasi-sb., esp. in phr. To talk bawdy (where perh. orig. adverbial): Lewd, obscene language, lewdness, obscenity.
1656. Sanderson, Serm. (1689), 16. To drink, talk bawdy, swear and stare.
1698. Vanbrugh, Æsop, Prol. No rape, no bawdy, no intrigue, no beau.
1702. De Foe, More Reform., 787. Eternal Bawdy fills up every Song.
1760. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, 220. How can that unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse.
3. Comb. bawdy-basket, a hawker of indecent literature; bawdy-house, a brothel.
1552. Huloet, Bawdye house or house of bawdrye … summœnium.
1567. Harman, Caveat, 65. These Bawdy baskets be … wemen, and go with baskets … where in they have laces, pynnes, nedles.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Bawdy Basket, the twenty-third rank of canters, who carry pins, tape, ballads and obscene books to sell.
1882. Ev. Man’s Own Lawyer, 390. The keeping a bawdy house is a common nuisance.
