beard

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.

noun

1. Facial hair on the chin, cheeks, jaw and neck.
2. 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
3. The appendages to the jaw in some cetaceans, and to the mouth or jaws of some fishes.
4. The byssus of certain shellfish.
5. The gills of some bivalves, such as the oyster.
6. In insects, the hairs of the labial palpi of moths and butterflies.
7. (botany) Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn.
   the beard of grain
8. Long, hair-like 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
9. A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
10. The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
11. That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
12. (printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
13. (LGBT, slang) A fake customer or companion, especially 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.

verb

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
2. (transitive) 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.
   We need all our operatives to insure the success of my plan to beard this Claus in his den... December 6 1943, Crockett Johnson, Barnaby
   . . . I bearded the judge in his chambers and told him that it shouldn't be allowed. 1963, Ross Macdonald, The Chill, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, page 92
3. (transitive) To take by the beard; to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of (a man), in anger or contempt.
4. (transitive) To deprive (an oyster or similar shellfish) of the gills.
5. (intransitive, beekeeping) Of bees, to accumulate together in a beard-like shape.
6. (LGBT, slang, transitive, intransitive) 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