beard

Meanings

Noun

• Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
• The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds.
• The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
• The byssus of certain shellfish.
• The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
• In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
• Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
• A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
• The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
• That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
• That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
• A fake customer or companion, especially a woman who accompanies a gay man, or a man who accompanies a lesbian, in order to give the impression that the person being accompanied is heterosexual.

Verb

• To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
• To boldly and bravely oppose or confront, often to the chagrin of the one being bearded.
• To take by the beard; to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of (a man), in anger or contempt.
• To deprive (an oyster or similar shellfish) of the gills.
• Of a gay man or woman: to accompany a gay person of the opposite sex in order to give the impression that they are heterosexual.

Origin

• From Middle English berd, bard, bærd, from Old English beard, from Proto-West Germanic *bard, from Proto-Germanic *bardaz (compare West Frisian burd, Dutch baard, German Bart), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂, *bʰh₂erdʰeh₂ (compare Latin barba, Lithuanian barzda, Russian борода́). barb.