Bauld

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing a person as either bold and adventurous or lacking caution; also an archaic term meaning bald or without hair
2. Characterizing someone as fearless and daring or thoughtless; historically used to indicate the absence of hair on the head
3. Referring to an individual who shows courage or recklessness; once employed to denote a hairless scalp or baldness

Etymology: "Bauld" is a Scots and northern English word, a variant of "bald," and its history follows the same path as the standard form. It comes from Middle English "bald," which in the medieval period meant "having white or light-coloured patches," and was used of a horse or a person with a bare head. The Scots form kept a vowel closer to the original Old English-era sound, so "bauld" in Scots literature can be a spelling of the same adjective rather than a separate word. The meaning of "bold," with its sense of fearless daring, comes from a different source. Its ancestor is Old English "beald," meaning brave or confident, and it is not related to the hairless sense. Because the two words were spelt almost identically in older Scots and northern English texts, "bauld" could mean either "bald" or "bold," and readers had to judge from context which was intended. Modern dictionaries record the Scots form as a sense of "bold" in its own right, which is why the word now carries both meanings.

Synonyms: bald, bare, hairless, naked

Antonyms: hairy, covered, furred