beard
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɪəd/
ipa: [bɪːd]
ipa: /bɪɹd/
ipa: /biɚd/
ipa: /bɜː(ɹ)d/
homophone: beared (cheer–chair merger)
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)d
rhymes: -ɪː(ɹ)d
Forms: form: beards
Etymology: PIE word
 *bʰardʰéh₂
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). Cognate further to Latin barba, Lithuanian barzda, Russian борода́ (borodá): the word may date to Proto-Indo-European as *bʰardʰeh₂, *bʰh₂erdʰeh₂. Doublet of barb.
Senses: glosses: Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 90:
glosses: The cluster of small feathers at the base of the beak in some birds.
glosses: The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
glosses: The byssus of certain shellfish.
glosses: The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
glosses: In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
examples: text: the beard of grain
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
examples: text: While all toms—adult male turkeys—have beards, nearly 10 percent of hens also have one, albeit a much stubbier, wispier version.
ref: 2022, Jenny McKee, “Let's Talk Turkey Beards”, in Audubon:
glosses: Long, hair-like feathers that protrude from the chest of a turkey
glosses: A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
glosses: The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
glosses: That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
examples: text: 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”.
ref: 2024 February 3, Joshua Chaffin, “Glossy new neighbourhood rises from a seedy slice of Miami vice”, in FT Weekend, page 10:
glosses: A fake customer or companion; an intermediary.
examples: text: What are you talking about, I should be the beard? I don't wanna be a beard.
ref: 1984, Woody Allen, Broadway Danny Rose, spoken by Danny Rose (Woody Allen):
glosses: A fake customer or companion; an intermediary.
One who helps to conceal infidelity in a monogamous relationship by acting as a cover.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1991 December 1, Rudy Grillo, “Who's The Top?”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 20, page 8:
text: Charlotte: Smith is not gay.
Miranda: Of course not.
Charlotte: So this makes you his beard.
ref: 2004 February 1, Aury Wallington, “The Cold War”, in Sex and the City, season 6, episode 17:
text: 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.’”
ref: 2019 September 16, Harvey Weinstein, quotee, “Harvey Weinstein told Cara Delevingne to ‘get a beard’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: A fake customer or companion; an intermediary.
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.
Derived terms: Aaron's beard
beardage
beard balm
beard brush
beard bug
beard burn
beard comb
beard cream
beard cut
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
bluebeard
debeard
dragon's beard candy
fat beard
fatbeard
forkbeard
frost beard
goat's-beard
grandfather's beard
green-beard effect
greybeard
hare's-beard
hawksbeard
hawk's-beard
jaw beard
Jove's beard
Jupiter's beard
legbeard
Lombard
longbeard
Movember beard
neckbeard
Ned Kelly beard
nosebeard
old man's beard
Omer beard
playoff beard
Redbeard
seabeard
Shenandoah beard
Thor's beard
tree-beard
treebeard
turkey's beard
unbeard
Vandyke beard
whitebeard