We prove global existence, uniqueness and stability of entropy solutions with $L^2cap L^infty$ initial data for a general family of negative order dispersive equations. It is further demonstrated that this solution concept extends in a unique continuous manner to all $L^2$ initial data. These weak solutions are found to satisfy one sided Holder conditions whose coefficients decay in time. The latter result controls the height of solutions and further provides a way to bound the maximal lifespan of classical solutions from their initial data.