beard

¹ American  

[beerd] / bɪərd /

noun

1. a thick growth of hair on the face, especially on an adult man, often including a mustache.

   He's been growing out his beard for a couple of months, and it's filling in nicely.

2. Zoology. a tuft, growth, or part resembling or suggesting the thick growth of hair on the human face, such as the tuft of long hairs on the lower jaw of a goat or the cluster of hairlike feathers at the base of the bill in certain birds.

3. Botany. a tuft or growth of awns or the like, as on wheat or barley.

4. a barb or catch on an arrow, fishhook, knitting needle, crochet needle, etc.

5. Also called bevel neck.  Printing.

   1. the sloping part of a type that connects the face with the shoulder of the body.

   2. British. the space on a type between the bottom of the face of an x-high character and the edge of the body, comprising both beard and shoulder.

   3. the cross stroke on the stem of a capital G.

6. Slang. a romantic partner chosen to conceal a person's sexual orientation, especially that of a gay or lesbian person.

---

verb (used with object)

1. to oppose boldly; defy.

   It took courage for the mayor to beard the pressure groups.

   Synonyms:

   face, dare, brave, confront

   Antonyms:

   dodge, avoid

2. to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of.

   The hoodlums bearded the old man.

3. to supply with a beard.

verb (used without object)

1. Slang. to act as a romantic partner to someone in order to conceal their sexual orientation, especially that of a gay or lesbian person.

Beard ² American  

[beerd] / bɪərd /

noun

1. Charles Austin, 1874–1948, and his wife Mary, 1876–1958, U.S. historians.

2. Daniel Carter, 1850–1941, U.S. artist and naturalist: organized the Boy Scouts of America in 1910.

3. James Andrew, 1903–85, U.S. cooking teacher and food writer.

---

beard British  

/ bɪəd /

noun

1. the hair growing on the lower parts of a man's face

2. any similar growth in animals

3. a tuft of long hairs in plants such as barley and wheat; awn

4. the gills of an oyster

5. a barb, as on an arrow or fish-hook

6. slang a woman who accompanies a homosexual man to give the impression that he is heterosexual

7. printing the part of a piece of type that connects the face with the shoulder

---

verb

1. to oppose boldly or impertinently

2. to pull or grasp the beard of

beard Scientific  

/ bîrd /

1. A tuft or group of hairs or bristles on certain plants, such as barley and wheat. The individual strands of a beard are attached to a sepal or petal.

---

Other Word Forms

• bearded adjective
• beardlike adjective
• unbeard verb (used with object)

Etymology

Origin of beard

First recorded before 900; Middle English berd, Old English beard; cognate with Dutch baard, German Bart, Late Latin Langobardi “Long-beards (name of the Lombards),” Crimean Gothic bars; akin to Latin barba, Lithuanian barzdà, Old Church Slavonic brada, Russian borodá

Example Sentences

She was talking with a big man whose bushy brown beard needed a good trimming.

From Literature

He couldn't be here because, um, we're getting a bearded dragon, and he went to a reptile expo in New Jersey.

From BBC

He looks more like a Columbia grad student than the stereotypical bearded revolutionary.

From The Wall Street Journal

Sir Thomas More on the scaffold of Tower Hill comforted his executioner and was reported by a witness to have repositioned his beard on the block, joking it had committed no treason.

From The Wall Street Journal

The impeccable, graceful waves of Joseph’s hair and beard conform to the aesthetic of Parisian court art.

From The Wall Street Journal