What does bawdy mean?
Bawdy describes speech, writing, or entertainment that deals with sexual matters in a comically crude or risqué way. A bawdy joke, song, or story is one that is indecent yet funny, trading on earthy humour rather than shock value. The adjective derives from 'bawd', an older noun meaning a person who procures others for prostitution, and it entered English usage around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bawdy humour has long been a staple of popular culture, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare's comedies to music-hall songs and modern stand-up comedy. Unlike harsher terms such as 'obscene' or 'filthy', 'bawdy' typically carries a connotation of rollicking good fun; it suggests coarseness delivered with wit and a wink. It remains a useful word for describing comedy that is cheeky and sexually frank without being genuinely offensive.
adjectiveDealing with sexual matters in a comical or coarse way; humorously indecent.
- Humorously indecent or lewd, especially in a comic way.
"The comedian's bawdy jokes had the audience laughing and blushing in equal measure."
"The play is full of bawdy humour that would have delighted Elizabethan audiences."
"After a few drinks, the sailors broke into a series of bawdy sea shanties."
Shakespeare was such a master of bawdy wordplay that scholars have written entire books cataloguing his dirty jokes.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bawdy
Bawdy comes from 'bawd', a Middle English noun meaning a procurer or keeper of a brothel, itself probably borrowed from Old French 'baud' meaning bold or merry. The adjective 'bawdy' emerged in English during the early modern period, first recorded in the sixteenth century, to describe language or behaviour characteristic of such coarse sexual dealings. It shares its French root with words like 'bold' through related Germanic origins.
Related word forms
How bawdy is actually used
Register: informal to literary. The word often carries a tone of affectionate indulgence rather than condemnation — 'bawdy' suggests earthy, playful coarseness rather than obscenity for its own sake. Commonly applied to jokes, songs, plays, and literature.
Easily confused with bawdy
'Bawdy' means humorously indecent, while 'body' is the physical structure of a person or animal — they sound similar but share no meaning.