Bluebeard

American  

[bloo-beerd] / ˈbluˌbɪərd /

noun

1. a fairy-tale character whose seventh wife found the bodies of her predecessors in a room she had been forbidden to enter.

2. any man alleged to have murdered a number of his wives or other women.

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Bluebeard British  

/ ˈbluːˌbɪəd /

noun

1. a villain in European folk tales who marries several wives and murders them in turn. In many versions the seventh and last wife escapes the fate of the others

2. a man who has had several wives

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Bluebeard Cultural  

1. A fairy tale character from the Charles Perrault collection. The character is a monstrous villain who marries seven women in turn and warns them not to look behind a certain door of his castle. Inside the room are the corpses of his former wives. Bluebeard kills six wives for their disobedience before one passes his test.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Bluebeardism
  noun

Example Sentences

From Bluebeard to “Bridgerton,” countless stories hinge on the gamble that is saying yes to a man.

From Washington Post • Dec. 25, 2021

She is currently working on a film about Bluebeard.

From The Guardian • Oct. 28, 2018

And Katy recommends Angela Carter's playful and subversive retellings of Charles Perrault's classic fairy tales, Bluebeard.

From Slate • May 19, 2017

Act II’s clutter of various looted sacred and profane sculptures piled on stacks of packing crates illustrated Caird’s notion that Scarpia is a collector in every sense of the word, kind of like Bartók’s Bluebeard.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 23, 2017

Yarn puddles all over the floor until all that is left are a few round, fuzzy balls with strange names like Pluto, Strawberry, and Bluebeard.

From "A Step from Heaven" by An Na