bawdry

B3A1W4D2R1Y4

noun

The practice of procuring women for the gratification of lust.

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Scrabble 15

Meanings

nounbawdry (countable and uncountable, plural bawdries)

plural bawdries · alternative baw'ry

  1. countableuncountableThe practice of procuring women for the gratification of lust.
  2. countableuncountableIllicit intercourse; fornication.
  3. countableuncountableObscenity; filthy, unchaste language.

    [T]he Converſation (if it may be called ſo) was ſeldom ſuch as could entertain a Lady. It conſiſted chiefly of Hollowing, Singing, Relations of ſporting Adventures, B—d—y, and Abuſe of Women and of the Government.

    1749, Henry Fielding, chapter IV, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII, page 26
    1 more example

    Let realism have its demonstration, comedy its criticism, or even bawdry its horselaugh at the expense of sexual infatuation, if it must; but to ask us to subject our souls to its ruinous glamour, to worship it, deify it, and imply that it alone makes our life worth living, is nothing but folly gone mad erotically—a thing compared to which Falstaff's unbeglamored drinking and drabbing is respectable and rightminded.

    1901, [George] Bernard Shaw, “Three Plays for Puritans”, in Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Cæsar and Cleopatra, & Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, London: Grant Richards, […], →OCLC, page xxix

Synonyms & antonyms

nounlewd or obscene talk or writing

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Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Cite this entry
APA

bawdry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawdry

MLA

“bawdry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawdry. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bawdry,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bawdry.

Source: bawdry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.