What does bawdiness mean?
Bawdiness is the quality of being bawdy — that is, of treating sexual matters with coarse, comic frankness. The word describes the ribald humour found in everything from medieval fabliaux and Shakespearean double entendres to modern stand-up comedy and farce. Unlike simple obscenity, bawdiness implies playfulness and wit; it suggests earthy laughter rather than shock for its own sake, which is why critics often invoke it warmly when discussing writers such as Chaucer, Rabelais, and Shakespeare. Grammatically it functions as an uncountable noun, typically appearing in phrases about the tone or character of a work ('the play's exuberant bawdiness'). Derived ultimately from 'bawd', an old word for someone who procured others for prostitution, the term retains a faint whiff of the disreputable even as it names a long and respectable comic tradition.
nounThe quality or state of being bawdy; humour, speech, or writing that deals with sexual matters in a coarse, comical, or indecent way.
- Coarse, humorous treatment of sexual subjects in language, literature, or behaviour.
- (Less common) Indecency or lewd conduct more generally.
"The play's relentless bawdiness scandalised some critics while delighting the groundlings."
"Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are famous for their exuberant bawdiness."
"Her speech mixed genuine wit with a dash of bawdiness that had the audience roaring."
Almost never pluralised; the word is normally treated as uncountable.
"The anthology collected the varied bawdinesses of Restoration comedy — a phrasing few readers would encounter outside scholarly prose."
Shakespeare's audiences loved it so much that his plays contain hundreds of bawdy puns — and 'bawdiness' itself traces back to the 'bawds' who ran brothels in Elizabethan London.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bawdiness
Bawdiness derives from 'bawdy', an adjective formed from the Middle English noun 'bawd', meaning a procurer or keeper of a brothel. 'Bawd' entered English around the late Middle Ages, probably from Old French, though its ultimate origin remains uncertain. From this disreputable occupational sense, the adjective broadened to describe anything lewd or humorously indecent, and bawdiness emerged as its abstract noun form by roughly the seventeenth century.
Related word forms
How bawdiness is actually used
Bawdiness is a mass noun with no plural in ordinary use. It carries a connotation of earthy, comic coarseness rather than outright obscenity, and is often used approvingly or affectionately in literary criticism when discussing writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Rabelais. It is a neutral-to-informal register term, common in reviews and essays.
Easily confused with bawdiness
Baldness refers to the loss of hair on the head, whereas bawdiness refers to coarse, sexually suggestive humour.