Why are women called broads?

Question

Okay well with my limited understanding of what it means I don't think it makes sense because most girls that I see around do not have broad shoulders. Most girls really don't have very defined shoulders. A lot of girls don't have that much muscle in their arms so their shoulders are kind of tilted downward and just kind of exist as the upper arm. I for one have broad shoulders but I have noticed that I am one of few girls who have well defined shoulders. I don't like it I think it makes me look more masculine than feminine. But why the heck are we women called broads then???? Please enlighten me so I can think about something more important! Is it the hips rather than the shoulders that the "broad" refers to?!

Answer 1

because the average female nowadays has a butt bigger than a barn, so we call them "broad"......live with it!!!!!!!

Answer 2

Where did this slang word for woman come from? Evidently, it is not from being broad in the hips as is commonly believed. Broad originally meant a ticket (admission, transport, meal, etc.). The word was then applied to prostitutes (a pimp's meal ticket), then to women of loose morals, and eventually to women in general. It dates to 1911. Why a ticket was called a broad is uncertain. Playing cards were also called broads, so the similarity may be the answer. Or it could have something to do with traveling abroad.

From

Answer 3

QUOTE:

Believe it or not, the word broad may come from an 18th-century slang use of the word to mean 'playing card'. How that meaning sprang up is uncertain, as is when and why the word broad came to mean an entrance ticket or transportation ticket. The origin of the 'ticket' meaning is in American circus slang, but it's only speculative to say that entrance tickets looked like playing cards in the era when this usage arose (1912 is the earliest citation).

What we have to connect women with tickets is a definition in Jackson and Hellyer's 1914 A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang, with Some Examples of Common Usages. It's worth quoting in full:
"Noun, Current amongst genteel grafters chiefly. A female confederate; a female companion, a woman of loose morals. Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of 'meal ticket,' signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket."

end quote

Answer 4

Women have broad backsides, which is why some men call them "broads". It's actually a played out term for women and very few men use it anymore.

Answer 5

just check you local urban slang dictionary :P

Answer 6

Answer to the last part of your question is YES!