Word.ws English Dictionary

beard the lion

beard the lion is the alternative form of beard the lion in his den.

Meaning of beard the lion in his den

Verb

beard the lion in his den (third-person singular simple present beards the lion in his den, present participle bearding the lion in his den, simple past and past participle bearded the lion in his den)

  1. (idiomatic) To confront an adversary in his or her own environment.
    • And dar'st thou then / To beard the lion in his den, / The Douglas in his hall?1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Sixth. The Battle.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William...

Forms of beard the lion

third-person singular presentbeards the lion
present participlebearding the lion
past participlebearded the lion
pastbearded the lion

Questions about beard the lion

What is beard the lion the alternative form of?
Beard the lion is the alternative form of beard the lion in his den.

Words near beard the lion in the dictionary

  1. beard pens
  2. beard rash
  3. beard rashes
  4. beard roller
  5. beard rollers
  6. beard the lion
  7. beard the lion in his den
  8. beard tree
  9. beard trimmer
  10. beard trimmers
  11. beard wax

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beard the lion (page history and authors); beard the lion in his den (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.

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Cite this entry: “beard the lion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beard_the_lion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.