beard

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪəd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɪɹd/, /biɚd/

• Audio (US):

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• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /bɜː(ɹ)d/^[1]
• Homophone: beared (cheer–chair merger)
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)d

beard (plural beards)

1. Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
2. 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.

3. The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
4. The byssus of certain shellfish.
5. The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
6. In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
7. (botany) Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.

   the beard of grain

8. 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.

9. A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
10. The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
11. That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
12. (printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
13. (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.
       • 1984, Woody Allen, Broadway Danny Rose, spoken by Danny Rose (Woody Allen):

         What are you talking about, I should be the beard? I don't wanna be a beard.

    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.’”

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.

   • 1765, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto:

     Am I to be bearded in my own castle by an insolent monk?

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     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 December 6, Crockett Johnson, Barnaby:

     We need all our operatives to insure the success of my plan to beard this Claus in his den...

   • 1963, Ross Macdonald, The Chill, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, page 92:

     . . . I bearded the judge in his chambers and told him that it shouldn't be allowed.

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.

• beard the lion, beard the lion in his den

• goatee
• hair
• merkin
• moustache, mustache
• pogonophobia
• sideburns, sideboards
• whiskers
• awn

• beard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• beard (companion) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “beard n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

• Debra, Bader, Aberd, Breda, bared, bread, Debar, arbed, ardeb, debar

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)).

• IPA^(key): /bæ͜ɑrd/, [bæ͜ɑrˠd]

beard m

1. beard

• beardlēas (“beardless”)
• Heaþubeardan (“Heathobards”)

• 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)