Broad

American slang for a woman dates from the early 20th century, perhaps suggestive of a woman’s hips or possibly from the earlier American English expression an “abroad” wife or woman, signifying an illicit relationship with another woman, perhaps a slave, in the figurative sense of being “overseas” or “abroad”. Americans are amused when the English talk of the “Norfolk Broads” but this English use of the word refers to a broadening expanse of fresh river water that is typical to the flat terrain of East Anglia and this usage of the word “broad” dates from the late 1700s.