A woman of ill repute; a female servant or assistant in a brothel.
Compound of bawd + strot, where strot may derive from Middle English meaning 'a young woman' or 'a strumpet.' This is a rare, highly specific term from medieval and early modern English reflecting the vocabulary of bawdy literature and theater.
This word is so specialized and odd that it barely appears in modern texts—it's the kind of insult that was specific enough to be devastating in its original context but so precise it faded away with the world it described!
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