Word.ws English Dictionary

five-o'clock shadow

five-o'clock shadow is the alternative form of five o'clock shadow.

Meaning of five o'clock shadow

Noun

five o'clock shadow (countable and uncountable, plural five o'clock shadows)

  1. (informal) A dark appearance on a man's chin and face caused by the slight growth of beard that has occurred since he shaved in the morning.
    • Men Wanted Without 5 O’Clock Shadow! To get on her wanted list, you must put your best face forward. Avoid “5 o’clock shadow” — that messy afternoon beard-growth. Stay face-neat all day long by shaving with a genuine Gem Blade.1942 November 30, Life, page 96

Forms of five-o'clock shadow

pluralfive-o'clock shadows

Questions about five-o'clock shadow

What is five-o'clock shadow the alternative form of?
Five-o'clock shadow is the alternative form of five o'clock shadow.

Words near five-o'clock shadow in the dictionary

  1. five-legged
  2. five-minute hypothesis
  3. five-nine
  4. five-nines
  5. five-o
  6. five-o'clock shadow
  7. five-o'clock shadows
  8. five-of-a-kind
  9. five-oh
  10. five-over-one
  11. five-over-ones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: five-o'clock shadow (page history and authors); five o'clock shadow (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: “five-o'clock shadow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/five-o%27clock_shadow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.