five o'clock shadow
five o'clock shadow noun: 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.
Noun
five o'clock shadow (countable and uncountable, plural five o'clock shadows)
- 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
| plural | five o'clock shadows |
|---|---|
| alternative form | 5 o'clock shadow |
| alternative form | five-o'clock shadow |
Origin of five o'clock shadow
First use appears c. 1942, US, advertising copy written by Jules B. Singer of the Federal Advertising Agency for the Gem brand of safety razors, made by the American Safety Razor Company.
Questions about five o'clock shadow
- What does five o'clock shadow mean?
- Five o'clock shadow means 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.
- What part of speech is five o'clock shadow?
- Five o'clock shadow is a noun.
- What is the plural of five o'clock shadow?
- The plural of five o'clock shadow is five o'clock shadows.
Words near five o'clock shadow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-five o'clock shadow.wav.
Cite this entry: “five o'clock shadow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/five_o%27clock_shadow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.