beard

[ beerd ]
See synonyms for beard on Thesaurus.com
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.

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

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

  3. Also called bev·el neck [bev-uhl nek] /ˈbɛv əl ˌnɛk/ .Printing.

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

    • 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.

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

  4. 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.

  2. to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of: The hoodlums bearded the old man.

  1. 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.

Origin of beard

1
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

Other words for beard

Opposites for beard

Other words from beard

  • beard·like, adjective
  • un·beard, verb (used with object)

Other definitions for Beard (2 of 2)

Beard
[ beerd ]

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.

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

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use beard in a sentence

  • We wish especially to express our appreciation of the helpful suggestions made by Daniel Carter beard.

    Boy Scouts Handbook | Boy Scouts of America

British Dictionary definitions for beard

beard

/ (bɪəd) /


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

  2. any similar growth in animals

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

  2. the gills of an oyster

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

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

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

verb(tr)
  1. to oppose boldly or impertinently

  2. to pull or grasp the beard of

Origin of beard

1
Old English beard; related to Old Norse barth, Old High German bart, Latin barba

Derived forms of beard

  • bearded, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for beard

beard

[ 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.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.