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

• Bluebeardism noun

Example Sentences

In “A Bluebeard of Wives,” Mark ponders her place as her husband’s third spouse.

From Washington Post • Apr. 11, 2023

Like the protagonist of Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Bluebeard is trapped by his memories, stopping the tape to stop time, replaying passages, lines or words or pausing the narrative for long moments.

From New York Times • Jan. 15, 2020

Puppeteer Mark Down stages The Nightingale, promising life-size puppets alongside the cast of eight singers, while WNO’s former artistic director David Pountney directs Bluebeard’s Castle, with Bryn Terfel as Bluebeard and Michelle DeYoung as Judith.

From The Guardian • Jan. 1, 2020

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

From Slate • May 19, 2017

She whispered to me the story of Bluebeard and His Seven Wives and I ceased to see the porch, the sunshine, her face, everything.

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright