bastardy
(ˈbɑːstədɪ, -æ-)
[a. AF. and OF. bastardie, f. bastard; see -y.]
1. The condition of a bastard, illegitimate birth.
| [1292 Britton i. v. §4 De bastardie et de bigamie.] 1486 Bk. St. Albans, Her. E viij, His faderis armys he may bere with sych a staffe as is sayd afore: in signe of his bastardy. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, iii. v. 75 Inferre the Bastardie of Edwards Children. 1655 Fuller Ch.-Hist. i. 31 No Crosse⁓barre of Bastardy..can bolt Grace out of that Heart, wherein God will have to enter. 1820 Byron Mar. Fal. v. iii. 72 Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph To the third spurious generation. 1868 Rogers Pol. Econ. viii. 70 Bastardy laws..put the maintenance of an illegitimate child on its putative parent. |
2. Begetting of bastards, fornication.
| 1577 J. Northbrooke Dicing (1843) 175 It is the storehouse and nurserie of bastardie. 1642 Rogers Naaman 303 Over⁓throwing the foundation of the family, by such bastardy. 1839 Carlyle Chartism iii. 121 Any law..which has become a bounty on unthrift..bastardy and beer-drinking. |
3. fig. in prec. senses.
| 1601 Shakes. Jul. C. ii. i. 138 When euery drop of blood..Is guilty of a seuerall Bastardie, If, etc. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §18. 34 No signs of Spuriousness or Bastardy [being] discovered in them. |
† 4. Bastards collectively, bastard brood. Obs.
| 1599 Marston Sco. Villanie iii. xi. 228 Which still he hugs, and luls as tenderly As cuckold Tisus his wifes bastardie. |
5. attrib., as bastardy law; bastardy order, an order made by a magistrate for the support of an illegitimate child by the putative father.
| 1867 Law Rep. Queen's Bench II. 468 In Slater's Case it was held that an original bastardy order could not be annulled by a subsequent order. 1872 Act 35 & 36 Vict. c. 65 An Act to amend the Bastardy Laws. 1880 Act 43 & 44 Vict. c. 32 §2 This Act may be cited as the Bastardy Orders Act, 1880. 1912 G. Stone Quest. National Insur. 100 Will the fact that the mother..is receiving maternity benefit make any difference to the amount of the bastardy order? |