/bas"teuhrd/ , n.
1. a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child.
2. Slang.
a. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires on my car.
b. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard broke his leg.
3. something irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual.
4. See bastard culverin .
adj.
5. illegitimate in birth.
6. spurious; not genuine; false: The architecture was bastard Gothic.
7. of abnormal or irregular shape or size; of unusual make or proportions: bastard quartz; bastard mahogany.
8. having the appearance of; resembling in some degree: a bastard Michelangelo; bastard emeralds.
9. Print. (of a character) not of the font in which it is used or found.
[ 1250-1300; ME bastard, ML bastardus (from 11th century), perh. bast-, presumed var. of * bost- marriage + OF -ard -ARD, taken as signifying the offspring of a polygynous marriage to a woman of lower status, a pagan tradition not sanctioned by the church; cf. OFris bost marriage bandstu-, a n. deriv. of IE * bhendh- BIND; the traditional explanation of OF bastard as deriv. of fils de bast "child of a packsaddle" is doubtful on chronological and geographical grounds ]
Syn. 6. fake, imitation, imperfect, sham, irregular, phony.