beard
UK/bɪəd//bɪɹd/
beard noun: facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
.jpg){kind=link}
Noun
beard (plural beards)
- Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
- The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds.
- At this moment the cock began to play; he stuck out his beard, trailed his wings down by his legs, and made, with great solemnity and wavelike motions of his neck, a few steps forward on the branch, while he stuck up his tail and spread it out like a big wheel.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 90
- 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.
- The hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
- The long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
- the beard of grain
- Long, hairlike feathers that protrude from the chest of a turkey.
- While all toms—adult male turkeys—have beards, nearly 10 percent of hens also have one, albeit a much stubbier, wispier version.2022, Jenny McKee, “Let's Talk Turkey Beards”, in Audubon
- 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; an intermediary.
- To get his way, Roberts employed a bit of developer's cunning: rather than approach Galardi directly, he sent a friend, Alan Meyers, as a “beard”.2024 February 3, Joshua Chaffin, “Glossy new neighbourhood rises from a seedy slice of Miami vice”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10
- One who helps to conceal infidelity in a monogamous relationship by acting as a cover.
- What are you talking about, I should be the beard? I don't wanna be a beard.1984, Woody Allen, Broadway Danny Rose, spoken by Danny Rose (Woody Allen)
- 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.
- One could also speculate that Linda also served as Cole's shield (or "beard") against his possibly being disinherited by his disapproving (of sissies) millionaire grandfather and doting mom, both of whom wanted him to be a lawyer.1991 December 1, Rudy Grillo, “Who's The Top?”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 20, page 8
- Charlotte: Smith is not gay.
Miranda: Of course not.
Charlotte: So this makes you his beard.2004 February 1, Aury Wallington, “The Cold War”, in Sex and the City, season 6, episode 17
Verb
beard (third-person singular simple present beards, present participle bearding, simple past and past participle bearded)
- To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
- To boldly and bravely oppose or confront, often to the chagrin of the one being bearded.
- Robin Hood is always shown as bearding the Sheriff of Nottingham.
- Am I to be bearded in my own castle by an insolent monk?1765, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
- 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 bees, to accumulate together in a beard-like shape.
- 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.
- Lesbians and homosexual men bearding one another (i.e. providing each other with the public appearance of being heterosexual); […]1993, David Michael Robinson, Mollies are Not the Only Fruit, page 39
- Things got weird after I married Jiro. It's like everyone knows I'm a lesbian who is bearding for her gay best friend so we can be rich one day, but they don't want to be reminded of it.2017, Hildred Billings, Blown By An Inconvenient Wind
Proper noun capitalized: Beard
Beard
- A surname transferred from the nickname.
- An unincorporated community in Warren Township, Clinton County, Indiana, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, United States, named after Josiah Beard.
- A suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, named after ex-convict Timothy Beard.
beard meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
beard in Hindi
- facial hair
- दाढ़ी dāṛhī, दाढी dāḍhī
beard in Tamil
- facial hair
- தாடி tāṭi
beard in Marathi
- facial hair
- दाढी dāḍhī
beard in Urdu
- facial hair
- داڑْھی dāṛhī
More languagesFewer languages
- beard in Bengali
- দাড়ি daṛi
- beard in Telugu
- గడ్డం gaḍḍaṁ
- beard in Malayalam
- താടി tāṭi
- beard in Kannada
- ಗಡ್ಡ gaḍḍa
- beard in Punjabi
- ਦਾੜ੍ਹੀ dāṛhī
- beard in Gujarati
- દાઢી dāḍhī
- beard in Odia
- ଦାଢ଼ି dāṛhi
- beard in Sanskrit
- दाढिका dāḍhikā, मासुरी māsurī, श्मश्रु śmaśru
- beard in Sinhala
- යටි රැවුල yaṭi ræwula
- beard in Assamese
- দাড়ি dari
- beard in Nepali
- दाह्री dāhrī
- beard in Pashto
- ږيره ģíra, بمبل bambál
- beard in Tagalog
- balbas, gumi, yangot, bungot
- beard in Arabic
- لِحْيَة liḥya, ذَقْن ḏaqn, دقن daʔn, لحية liḥya
- beard in Malay
- janggut
- beard in Indonesian
- janggut, jenggot
- beard in Persian
- رِیش rīš, ریش riš, بَلْمِه balme
- beard in Thai
- เครา krao
- beard in Vietnamese
- râu
- beard in Myanmar
- မုတ်ဆိတ် muthcit
- Dhivehi
- ތުންބުޅި tun̊buḷi
- Kashmiri
- دٲر dạ̄r, ریش rēś
- Dzongkha
- རྒྱབོ rgyabo
Examples of beard in a sentence
- In an interview with Net a Porter, Delevingne said that “one of the first things Harvey Weinstein ever said to me was, ‘You will never make it in this industry as a gay woman – get a beard.’”2019 September 16, Harvey Weinstein, quotee, “Harvey Weinstein told Cara Delevingne to ‘get a beard’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- No admiral, bearded by these corrupt and dissolute minions of the palace, dared to do more than mutter something about a court martial.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify...
- He was not to be bearded thus in his own seat of office.1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html)...
- We need all our operatives to insure the success of my plan to beard this Claus in his den...1943 December 6, Crockett Johnson, Barnaby:
Forms of beard
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | beards |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | beards |
| present participle | bearding |
| past participle | bearded |
| past | bearded |
Origin of beard
PIE word *bʰardʰéh₂ From Middle English berd, bard, bærd, from Old English beard, from Proto-West Germanic *bard, from Proto-Germanic *bardaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂, *bʰh₂erdʰeh₂. Cognates Cognate with Scots beird (“beard”), Yola bearde (“beard”), North Frisian biard (“beard”), Saterland Frisian Boart (“beard”), West Frisian burd (“beard”), Bavarian Bårt (“beard”), Dutch baard (“beard”), German Bart (“beard”), German Low German and Luxembourgish Baart (“beard”), Vilamovian biöt (“beard”), Yiddish באָרד (bord, “beard”), Icelandic barð (“brim; edge, ridge”), Norwegian Bokmål bart (“moustache”), Norwegian Nynorsk bard, barde (“edge, rim”), bart (“moustache”), Crimean Gothic bars (“beard”); also Latin barba (“beard”), Latvian bārda (“beard”), Lithuanian barzda (“beard”), Belarusian барада́ (baradá, “beard”), Bulgarian and Macedonian брада́ (bradá, “beard; chin”), Czech, Slovak, and Slovene brada (“beard”), Russian and Ukrainian борода́ (borodá, “beard”), Serbo-Croatian бра́да, bráda (“beard”). Doublet of barb.
Originally a nickname for someone with a beard.
Words formed from beard
- Aaron's beard
- beardage
- beard balm
- beard brush
- beard bug
- beard burn
- beard comb
- beard cream
- beard cut
- beard-down
- bearded
- bearder
- beardfish
- beardgrass
- beard hair
- beardie
- beardie-weirdie
- beardiness
- bearding
- beardish
- beardism
- beardist
- beard itch
- beard kit
- beardless
- beardlessness
- beardlet
- beard lichen
- beardlike
- beardline
- beardling
- beardly
- beard mask
- beard moss
- beard net
- beardo
- beard oil
- beard pen
- beard pencil
- beard rash
- beard roller
- beardruff
- beard-second
- beard-stroking
- beardtongue
- beard tree
- beard trimmer
- beard wax
- beard worm
- beardy
- bee beard
- Blackbeard
- Bluebeard
- chest-protector beard
- debeard
- doormat beard
- dragon's beard candy
- fatbeard
- fat beard
- forkbeard
Phrases with beard
- jaw beard
- sea beard
- beard bugs
- beard cuts
- beard kits
- beard nets
- beard oils
- beard pens
- nose beard
- Omer beard
- beard balms
- beard combs
31 more phrasesFewer phrases
- beard grass
- beard hairs
- beard masks
- beard waxes
- beard worms
- frost beard
- beard creams
- beard mosses
- beard rashes
- hawk's beard
- Jove's beard
- Thor's beard
- beard brushes
- beard lichens
- beard pencils
- beard rollers
- playoff beard
- Spanish beard
- Vandyke beard
- beard the lion
- beard trimmers
- Movember beard
- turkey's beard
- Jupiter's beard
- Ned Kelly beard
- old man's beard
- Shenandoah beard
- Aaron's beard cacti
- grandfather's beard
- Aaron's beard cactus
- beard the lion in his den
Words that rhyme with beard
Questions about beard
- What does beard mean?
- Beard means facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
- What is beard in Hindi?
- Beard in Hindi is दाढ़ी (dāṛhī), दाढी (dāḍhī). See Beard meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use beard in a sentence?
- In an interview with Net a Porter, Delevingne said that “one of the first things Harvey Weinstein ever said to me was, ‘You will never make it in this industry as a gay woman – get a beard.’”
- What part of speech is beard?
- Beard can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce beard?
- Beard is pronounced /bɪəd/ (UK).
- What is the plural of beard?
- The plural of beard is beards.
Words near beard in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beard (page history and authors); Beard (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-beard.ogg.
Cite this entry: “beard.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beard. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.