beard
See also: Beard
English
.jpg.webp)
A young man with a beard
A man with a prominent beard.
Etymology
| PIE word |
|---|
| *bʰardʰéh₂ |
From Middle English berd, bard, bærd, from Old English beard, from Proto-West Germanic *bard, from Proto-Germanic *bardaz (compare West Frisian burd, Dutch baard, German Bart). Cognate further to Latin barba, Lithuanian barzda, Russian борода́ (borodá): the word may date to Proto-Indo-European as *bʰardʰeh₂, *bʰh₂erdʰeh₂. Doublet of barb.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /bɪə(ɹ)d/
- (US) IPA(key): /bɪɹd/, /biɚd/
- (obsolete) IPA(key): /bɜː(ɹ)d/[1]
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)d
- Homophone: beared (in accents with the near-square merger)
Noun
beard (plural beards)
- Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
- The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds.
- 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, H.L. Brækstad, transl., Folk and Fairy Tales, page 90:
- At this moment the cock began to play; he stuck out his beard, trailed his wings down by his legs, and made, with great solemnity and wavelike motions of his neck, a few steps forward on the branch, while he stuck up his tail and spread it out like a big wheel.
-
- The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
- The byssus of certain shellfish.
- The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
- In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
- (botany) Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
- the beard of grain
- A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
- The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
- That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
- (printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
- (LGBT, slang) A fake customer or companion, especially a woman who accompanies a gay man, or a man who accompanies a lesbian, in order to give the impression that the person being accompanied is heterosexual.
Derived terms
- Aaron's beard
- bearded
- beardless
- beard lichen
- beardlike
- beard moss
- beard oil
- beard-second
- beard-stroking
- beard worm
- bee beard
- dragon's beard candy
- goat's-beard
- green-beard effect
- jaw beard
- Jupiter's beard
- Ned Kelly beard
- nosebeard
- old man's beard
- playoff beard
- Shenandoah beard
- Thor's beard
- turkey's beard
Translations
facial hair
| |||||||
opposite-sex companion of a gay person
|
Verb
beard (third-person singular simple present beards, present participle bearding, simple past and past participle bearded)
- (intransitive, obsolete) To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
- (transitive) To boldly and bravely oppose or confront, often to the chagrin of the one being bearded.
- Robin Hood is always shown as bearding the Sheriff of Nottingham.
- 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:
- No admiral, bearded by these corrupt and dissolute minions of the palace, dared to do more than mutter something about a court martial.
- 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
- Murphy was a choleric man with a sense of his own importance. He was not to be bearded thus in his own seat of office. He rose with a very red face.
- 1943, Crockett Johnson, Barnaby, December 6, 1943
- We need all our operatives to insure the success of my plan to beard this Claus in his den...
- 1963, Ross Macdonald, The Chill, pg.92, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
- . . . I bearded the judge in his chambers and told him that it shouldn't be allowed.
- (transitive) To take by the beard; to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of (a man), in anger or contempt.
- (transitive) To deprive (an oyster or similar shellfish) of the gills.
- (intransitive, beekeeping) Of bees, to accumulate together in a beard-like shape.
- (LGBT, slang, transitive, intransitive) Of a gay man or woman: to accompany a gay person of the opposite sex in order to give the impression that they are heterosexual.
- 1993, David Michael Robinson, Mollies are Not the Only Fruit (page 39)
- Lesbians and homosexual men bearding one another (i.e. providing each other with the public appearance of being heterosexual); […]
- 2017, Hildred Billings, Blown By An Inconvenient Wind:
- Things got weird after I married Jiro. It's like everyone knows I'm a lesbian who is bearding for her gay best friend so we can be rich one day, but they don't want to be reminded of it.
- 1993, David Michael Robinson, Mollies are Not the Only Fruit (page 39)
Derived terms
- beard the lion, beard the lion in his den
Translations
to grow hair on the chin and jaw
|
bravely oppose
|
See also
- goatee
- hair
- merkin
- moustache, mustache
- pogonophobia
- sideburns, sideboards
- whiskers
- awn
References
- Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9), volume I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 13.34, page 365.
Further reading
beard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Anagrams
- Bader, Breda, Debar, Debra, arbed, ardeb, bared, bread, debar
Old English
Etymology
From Proto-West Germanic *bard, from Proto-Germanic *bardaz (compare West Frisian burd, Dutch baard, German Bart), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂ (compare Latin barba, Lithuanian barzda, Russian борода́ (borodá)).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bæ͜ɑrd/, [bæ͜ɑrˠd]
Noun
beard m
- beard
Declension
Declension of beard (strong a-stem)
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | beard | beardas |
| accusative | beard | beardas |
| genitive | beardes | bearda |
| dative | bearde | beardum |
Derived terms
- beardlēas (“beardless”)
- Heaþubeardan (“Heathobards”)
Descendants
- Middle English: berd, bard, bærd, beord, burd
- English: beard
- Scots: berd, berde, beird
- Yola: bearde
- → Anglo-Norman: berd
- →⇒ Anglo-Norman: barder (verb) (merged with Old French barbier)