Băs'tard1, n.
n. [O. Fr. & Pr. bastard, bastart, N. Fr. bâtard, Sp., Pg., & It. bastardo, L. Lat. bastardus, Ger. bastart, from O. Fr. & Pr. bast, N. Fr. bât, a pack-saddle used as beds by the muleteers, L. Lat. basta, bastum, and the term. ard, art, which see; O. Fr. fils de bast, son of the pack-saddle; as the muleteers were accustomed to use their saddles for beds in the inns. See Cervantes, Don Quixote, chap. 16, and cf. BANTLING.]
Sense 1. A natural child; a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate or spurious child; one born of an illicit union.
☞ By the civil and canon laws, and by the laws of many of the United States, a bastard becomes a legitimate child by the intermarriage of the parents at any future time. But by those of England, and of some of the States of the Union, a child, to be legitimate, must at least be born after the lawful marriage. Kent. Blackstone.
Bastard eigne or bastard elder (Law), the bastard son of a man who afterward marries the mother, and has a legitimate son, who is called mulier puisne, or younger. Blackstone.
Sense 2. (Sugar Refining.) (a.) An inferior quality of soft brown sugar, obtained from the concentration of sirups that have already given sugar by several boilings. (b.) A large size of mold, in which sugar is drained. Ure.
Sense 3. A kind of sweet Spanish wine, approaching muscadel in flavor, of which there were two sorts, white and brown. Brown bastard is your only drink. Shak.