beard
noun
a thick growth of hair on the face, especially on an adult man, often including a mustache.
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beard
1 American
[beerd]
/ bɪərd /
noun
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beards
plural
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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.
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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.
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Botany. a tuft or growth of awns or the like, as on wheat or barley.
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a barb or catch on an arrow, fishhook, knitting needle, crochet needle, etc.
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Also called bevel neck. Printing.
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the sloping part of a type that connects the face with the shoulder of the body.
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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.
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the cross stroke on the stem of a capital G.
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Slang. a romantic partner chosen to conceal a person's sexual orientation, especially that of a gay or lesbian person.
verb (used with object)
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beards,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bearded,
past participle, past
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bearding
present participle
verb (used without object)
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beards,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bearded,
past participle, past
-
bearding
present participle
Beard
2
American
[beerd]
/ bɪərd /
noun
-
Charles Austin, 1874–1948, and his wife Mary, 1876–1958, U.S. historians.
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Daniel Carter, 1850–1941, U.S. artist and naturalist: organized the Boy Scouts of America in 1910.
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James Andrew, 1903–85, U.S. cooking teacher and food writer.
beard
British
/ bɪəd /
noun
-
the hair growing on the lower parts of a man's face
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any similar growth in animals
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a tuft of long hairs in plants such as barley and wheat; awn
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the gills of an oyster
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a barb, as on an arrow or fish-hook
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slang a woman who accompanies a homosexual man to give the impression that he is heterosexual
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printing the part of a piece of type that connects the face with the shoulder
verb
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to oppose boldly or impertinently
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to pull or grasp the beard of
beard
Scientific
/ bîrd /
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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beardsimple
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beardssimple
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have beardedperfect
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has beardedperfect
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am beardingprogressive
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are beardingprogressive
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is beardingprogressive
-
have been beardingperfect progressive
-
has been beardingperfect progressive
Past
-
beardedsimple
-
had beardedperfect
-
was beardingprogressive
-
were beardingprogressive
-
had been beardingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
A beard is the facial hair on a person's chin and cheeks. Santa Claus is famous in part for his long, white beard. You're most likely to see a beard on an adult man, although some women grow enough facial hair to sport a beard too. Some animals, like goats, have beards as well. Someone whose presence helps another person disguise his identity — maybe because he's a spy — is often informally called a beard as well.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He turned out to be an ordinary-looking 56-year-old man with a buzz cut and salt-and-pepper beard.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt which bears evidence of a roadside repair, Karl - sporting a grey beard - appears in the car park of a Belgian railway station.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
I wondered if McGregor would have quibbled with his Obi-Wan’s patchy blond beard, but when I went back and double-checked the film, it is that scraggly.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
He blended into the crowd, grew his beard, attended the mosques where the killers preached, listened, questioned, checked rumors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Daddy had gone to Harvard university a million years ago, when he was young and didn't have a beard.
From "All About Sam" by Lois Lowry
Matt Beard, the former Liverpool Women manager, died in hospital on 20 September 2025.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Belinda Chang, a James Beard Award-winning sommelier in Chicago, said she has been approached by business school students and financial executives to lead workshops on how to navigate wine lists in corporate settings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
Beard was in hospice care when he passed away at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with family members at his side, band representative Bob Merlis said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
ZZ Top is mourning the loss of longtime drummer Frank Beard, who has died at age 77 after years of facing health-related issues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
Square Glasses seemed okay, and Blond Beard was neutral, still focused on his phone.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
I wasn’t surprised to learn the two men were close friends; they even look alike, with their long white beards and sparkling eyes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
About 20 aid workers were arrested in June near the Iran border in Herat province by Afghanistan's morality police, because their beards were not long enough.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
George Balanchine, the great modernist choreographer, forbade his male dancers to wear long hair or beards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
He detested beards, thought them all fakes—his bearded Georgian father had died in 1937.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
When the light dawned in the morning, they were like a company of ghosts, their faces drained and pale with strain, their beards and hair white with snow and salt spray.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
Posted Wednesday to the official X account for DHS, the image created by artificial intelligence depicted the “Transformers” character opposite a bearded man wearing a bandanna over his hair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Hidden in the basement of a supermarket, the thick smell of sweat hangs heavy in the air as she pushes weights alongside bearded muscle-men.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Other entrants include a trans woman named Ashley Webb and a gloriously bearded Marine vet.
From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2026
The nation now openly mocks the bearded guerrillas, including Fidel Castro, and their generation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
I can’t hide my mouth with a strategic haircut—unless I want to become a bearded lady.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
Some say this bearding trend began with the 1980s television series “Miami Vice,” wherein the actor Don Johnson sported a 5-o’clock shadow that was much commented on.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
There’s talk of bearding dragons in their den and of forthcoming battles, plus a rather lovely foray into a deep cave system.
From The Guardian ● May 11, 2016
One can only imagine what Mr. Beale might have done with the character if the script had been more daring in bearding Stalin in his innermost lair.
From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2012
Through a popular book and a starring role on IFC’s “Whisker Wars,” a seven-episode documentary series, Jack Passion, 28, has become the bushy face of the bearding game.
From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2011
The grey moss grew thickly here, covering the fallen stones in great mounds and bearding all the towers.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
