Broad: The slang sense of "woman" is by 1911, usually said to be suggestive of broad hips, but
From
HenHanna@HenHanna@dev.null to
sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.language.latin on Thu Nov 14 20:29:39 2024
From Newsgroup: alt.language.latin
Five hundred dollars (not hundreds)
Six thousand stones (not thousands)
_____________________ broad (n.)
c. 1300, "breadth" (obsolete), from broad (adj.). The sense of "a
shallow, reedy lake formed by the expansion of a river over a flat
surface" is a Norfolk dialect word from 1650s. The meaning "the broad
part" of anything is by 1741.
The slang sense of "woman" is by 1911, usually said to be suggestive of
broad hips, but it also might trace influence to American English abroad
wife, used of a woman (often a slave) away from her husband.
Earliest use of the slang [broad] suggests immorality or coarse,
low-class women.
Because of this negative association, and the rise of women's athletics,
the track and field broad jump (1863) was changed to the long jump c.
1967.
also from c. 1300
---------- interesting about [long jump]
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