The Collaborative International Dictionary
Badaud \Ba`daud"\, n. [F.] A person given to idle observation of everything, with wonder or astonishment; a credulous or gossipy idler.
A host of stories . . . dealing chiefly with the
subject of his great wealth, an ever delightful topic
to the badauds of Paris.
--Pall Mall
Mag.
Wiktionary
n. A person given to idle observation of everything, with wonder or astonishment; a credulous or gossipy idler.
Wikipedia
The badaud is an important urban type from 18th and 19th-century French literature, one that has been adapted to explain aspects of mass culture and modern experience.
The term badaud (plural, badauds) comes from the French and has the basic meaning of "gawker”, or more neutrally, “bystander”. The term usually carries the connotation of idle curiosity, gullibility, simpleminded foolishness and gaping ignorance. It was an old inheritance, but was elaborated as an urban type in the eighteenth and nineteenth century to describe the street crowds that were an essential feature of the Parisian landscape. Like the flâneur, to which it has been frequently contrasted, the badaud has been construed as an emblematic figure of the modern, urban experience and of mass culture. The term badauderie (though not frequently used) refers to the act of gathering in a street crowd or gawking.
Usage examples of "badaud".
That man was a Parisian and a 'badaud' to the backbone, like a Gaul in the days of Caesar.
But if the Parisians are lounging about from morning till night, enjoying everything around them, a foreigner like myself ought to have been a greater 'badaud' than they!
The 'badauds', who never fail to congregate near the carriage of princes, no matter if they have seen them a hundred times, or if they know them to be as ugly as monkeys, repeated the words of the duchess everywhere, and that was enough to send here all the snuff-takers of the capital in a hurry.