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. Origins and definition Badaud was in usage from the 16th century, if not earlier, a French adaptation of the old Provençal "badau". From the beginning the term described frivolous curiosity and ignorance. The Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (1867) defined the term in this way: "The badaud is curious; he is astonished by everything he sees; he believes everything he hears, and he shows his contentment or his surprise by his open, gaping mouth." The term came frequently to describe the crowds that gathered in the street at any remarkable sight. From the 17th century and after, the term was associated with Parisians. It is most frequently rendered in English as "gawker" or "bystander". Various explanations of the concept Antoine Furetière's Dictionnaire universel of 1690 defined the term and noted its association with Parisians. "It is an insulting nickname that has been given to the inhabitants of Paris, for they gather and amuse themselves to see and admire everything they find in their path, provided that it seems out of the ordinary". Half a century later, Voltaire wrote: "If the people of Paris are most readily described as badauds, it is only because there are more people in Paris than elsewhere, and consequently more useless people. They gather at the first unfamiliar sight, to contemplate a charlatan, or two women of the people arguing, or a driver whose cart has overturned... There are badauds everywhere, but the first place has been given to those of Paris." Louis-Sébastien Mercier (in 1782) noted that Parisians were often described as "perfect