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bastardy

[bas-ter-dee]

noun

the state or condition of being a bastard; illegitimacy.

the act of begetting a bastard.

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French bastardie. See bastard, -y³

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Bastardy is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

bastardy (ˈbɑːstədɪ, ˈbæs-)

—n
	archaic the condition of being a bastard; illegitimacy

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Matching Quote

"Since childhood, I have been enchanted by the fact and the symbolism of the right hand and the left—the one the doer, the other the dreamer. The right is order and lawfulness, le droit. Its beauties are those of geometry and taut implication. Reaching for knowledge with the right hand is science. Yet to say only that much of science is to overlook one of its excitements, for the great hypotheses of science are gifts carried in the right hand. Of the left hand we say that it is awkward and, while it has been proposed that art students can seduce their proper hand to more expressiveness by drawing first with the left, we nonetheless suspect this function. The French speak of the illegitimate descendent as being à main gauche, and, though the heart is virtually at the center of the thoracic cavity, we listen for it on the left. Sentiment, intuition, bastardy. And should we say that reaching for knowledge with the left hand is art? Again it is not enough, for as surely as the recital of a daydream differs from the well-wrought tale, there is a barrier between undisciplined fantasy and art. To climb the barrier requires a right hand adept at technique and artifice."

-Jerome S. Bruner

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bastardy

bas·tar·dy