Bawdiest

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterized by humor or content that is crude and sexually explicit
2. Featuring behavior or speech that is intentionally indecent or offensive
3. Marked by crude, risqué humor or language that deals openly with sexual matters ; done or said in a way intended to shock or upset by being indecent

Etymology: "Bawdiest" is the superlative of "bawdy", so it is the form that means most crude in sexual matters. The adjective "bawdy" is built from the noun "bawd", a word that once meant a person who procured or ran a brothel, and the suffix "-y" was added to turn that noun into a description. "Bawd" entered Middle English from Old French "baud", meaning merry or joyful, which in turn came from a Frankish word "balth" meaning bold. The suffix "-y" comes from Old English "-ig", a common ending for forming adjectives from nouns. Its earlier sense was broader and less pointed than the modern one. A bawd could be any woman who ran a house of ill repute, and "bawdy" first described things connected to such places before it came to mean openly sexual or coarse talk in general.

Synonyms: raunchiest, risqué, lewd

Antonyms: modest