XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.language.latin
From: naddy@mips.inka.de

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.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de

--- SoupGate-DOS v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)