XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.language.latin   
   From: kehoea@parhasard.net   
      
    Ar an ceathrú lá déag de mí na Samhain, scríobh Christian Weisgerber:   
      
    > On 2024-11-14, Rich Ulrich  wrote:   
    >   
    > >>Origin:        The use of "broad" to refer to a woman dates back to the   
    > >>early 20th century, particularly in American slang.   
    > >   
    > >    Slang sense of "woman" is by 1911, perhaps suggestive of broad   
    > >    hips, but it also might trace to American English abroadwife, word   
    > >    for a woman (often a slave) away from her husband.   
    >   
    > That's the sort of thing you look up in _Green’s Dictionary of Slang_   
    > https://greensdictofslang.com/   
    > ... which unfortunately doesn't provide a definitive answer either   
    > in this case.   
    >   
    > The slang term is typically rendered as "Braut" into German, and I   
    > never gave this any thought because the words are so similar, but   
    > now I notice that "Braut" is of course cognate with "bride", so   
    > "broad" can't really be connected... unless it's a borrowing from   
    > another Germanic language?  But neither German "Braut", nor Dutch   
    > "bruid", nor Scandinavian "brud" seem quite right.   
      
   There’s not reason it can’t be a borrowing (in that sense) from German or   
   from   
   Dutch, with it being first attested in the US at a point when the recent German   
   immigrant proportion of the population was as its highest.   
      
   --   
   ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /   
   How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’   
   (C. Moore)   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)