Wiktionary

beard

See also: Beard

English

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A young man with a beard
 
A man with a prominent beard.

Etymology

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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

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Noun

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beard (plural beards)

  2. Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
  3. The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds.
    • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, 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.
  4. The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
  5. The byssus of certain shellfish.
  6. The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
  7. In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
  8. (botany) Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
    the beard of grain
  9. Long, hair-like feathers that protrude from the chest of a turkey
    • 2022, Jenny McKee, “Let's Talk Turkey Beards”, in Audubon:
      While all toms—adult male turkeys—have beards, nearly 10 percent of hens also have one, albeit a much stubbier, wispier version.
  10. A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
  11. The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
  12. That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
  13. (printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
  14. (slang, originally gambling) A fake customer or companion; an intermediary.
    • 2024 February 3, Joshua Chaffin, “Glossy new neighbourhood rises from a seedy slice of Miami vice”, in FT Weekend, page 10:
      To get his way, Roberts employed a bit of developer's cunning: rather than approach Galardi directly, he sent a friend, Alan Meyers, as a “beard”.
    1. One who helps to conceal infidelity in a monogamous relationship by acting as a cover.
    2. (LGBTQ) 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.
      • 1991 December 1, Rudy Grillo, “Who's The Top?”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 20, page 8:
        One could also speculate that Linda also served as Cole's shield (or "beard") against his possibly being disinherited by his disapproving (of sissies) millionaire grandfather and doting mom, both of whom wanted him to be a lawyer.
      • 2004 February 1, Aury Wallington, “The Cold War”, in Sex and the City, season 6, episode 17:
        Charlotte: Smith is not gay.
        Miranda: Of course not.
        Charlotte: So this makes you his beard.
      • 2019 September 16, Harvey Weinstein, quotee, “Harvey Weinstein told Cara Delevingne to ‘get a beard’”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
        In an interview with Net a Porter, Delevingne said that “one of the first things Harvey Weinstein ever said to me was, ‘You will never make it in this industry as a gay woman – get a beard.’”

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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beard (third-person singular simple present beards, present participle bearding, simple past and past participle bearded)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
  2. (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.
  3. (transitive) To take by the beard; to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of (a man), in anger or contempt.
  4. (transitive) To deprive (an oyster or similar shellfish) of the gills.
  5. (intransitive, beekeeping) Of bees, to accumulate together in a beard-like shape.
  6. (LGBTQ, 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.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)‎[1], volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 13.34, page 365.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Old English

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Etymology

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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

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  • IPA(key): /bæ͜ɑrd/, [bæ͜ɑrˠd]

Noun

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beard m

  1. beard

Declension

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Strong a-stem:

singular plural
nominative beard beardas
accusative beard beardas
genitive beardes bearda
dative bearde beardum

Derived terms

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Descendants

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