beaver

Etymology 1

)]] From Middle English bever, from Old English befer, from Proto-West Germanic *bebru, from Proto-Germanic *bebruz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰébʰrus (“beaver”). Cognate with West Frisian bever, Dutch bever, French bièvre, German Biber, dialectal Swedish bjur. Non-Germanic cognates include Welsh befer, Latin fiber, Lithuanian bẽbras, Russian бобр (bobr), Avestan 𐬠𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬭𐬀 (bauura), and Sanskrit बभ्रु (bábhru, “mongoose; ichneumon”).

noun

1. (countable) A semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet.
   Then, for the safeguard of his personage, He did appoint a warlike equipage Of foreign beasts, not in the forest bred, But part by land and part by water fed; For tyranny is with strange aid supported. Then unto him all monstrous beasts resorted Bred of two kinds, as Griffons, Minotaurs, Crocodiles, Dragons, Beavers, and Centaurs: With those himself he strengthened mightily, That fear he need no force of enemy. 1591, Edmund Spenser, “Prosopopoia; or, Mother Hubberd’s Tale”, in Edmund Spenser, edited by Charles Cowden Clarke, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, published 1868, lines 1117–1126, page 112
2. The fur of the beaver.
3. (countable) A hat, of various shapes, made from a felted beaver fur (or later of silk), fashionable in Europe between 1550 and 1850.
   The woman's hair and woman's beaver had both been jerked off, exposing the cropped head of a man... 1896, Owen Rhoscomyl, For the White Rose of Arno
4. (Canada, US) Beaver pelts as an article of exchange or as a standard of value.
5. Beaver cloth, a heavy felted woollen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.
6. A brown colour, like that of a beaver.
   beaver:
7. (countable, backgammon) A move in response to being doubled, in which one immediately doubles the stakes again, keeping the doubling cube on one’s own side of the board.
8. Alternative letter-case form of Beaver (“member of the youngest wing of the Scout movement”).

verb

1. To work hard.
   When A. G. Dickens published his English Reformation in 1964 the archival beavering of a generation of graduate students was given its imprimatur in the claim to understand how the English people felt about religious change—largely, according to Dickens, positively. 2017, Felicity Heal, “Changing Interpretations of the British Reformations”, in Ulinka Rublack, editor, The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 234
2. (logging, slang) To cut a continuous ring around a tree that one is felling.
3. (backgammon) After being doubled, to immediately double the stakes again, a move that keeps the doubling cube on one’s own side of the board.

Etymology 2

See bevor.

noun

1. Alternative spelling of bevor (“part of a helmet”).
   With trembling hands her beaver he untied, / Which done, he saw, and seeing knew her face. 1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XII, lxvii
   Without alighting from his horse, the conqueror called for a bowl of wine, and opening the beaver, or lower part of his helmet, announced that he quaffed it, “To all true English hearts, and to the confusion of foreign tyrants.” 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
   1951 Adaptation of the 1885 Ormsby translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, correcting Ormsby as to the portion of the helmet referred to by Cervantes (see note 11 to chapter II) at the suggestion of Juan Hartzenbusch, a 19th-century director of the National Library of Spain. They laid a table for him at the door of the inn for the sake of the air, and the host brought him a portion of ill-soaked and worse cooked stockfish, and a piece of bread as black and mouldy as his own armour; but a laughble sight it was to see him eating, for having his helmet on and the beaver up, he could not with his own hands put anything into his mouth unless some one else placed it there, and this service one of the ladies rendered him.
   As each one brings a little of himself to what he sees you brought the trappings of your historic preoccupations, so that Monsieur flattered you by presenting himself with beaver up like Hamlet's father's ghost! 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 128

Etymology 3

noun

1. Butter.
   Butter – Beaver.] [1754, The Scoundrel’s Dictionary, London, page 15

Etymology 4

verb

1. To form a felt-like texture, similar to the way beaver fur is used for felt-making.
   Without these attentions the woad will not beaver well, a term descriptive of the fineness of the capillary filaments into which it draws out when broken between the finger and thumb. 1799, Arthur Young, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln, London, page 155

Etymology 5

noun

1. Referring to a beard.
   1. (countable) A beard or a bearded person.
      The beards were false ones. I could see the elastic going over their ears. In other words, I had fallen among a band of criminals who were not wilful beavers, but had merely assumed the fungus for purposes of disguise. 1936, P. G. Wodehouse, Laughing Gas
   2. (uncountable, historical) A game, in which points are scored by spotting beards.
2. (countable) Referring to the genital area or a woman.
   1. (chiefly Canada, US) The pubic hair near a vulva or a vulva itself; (attributively) denoting films or literature featuring nude women.
      Finally it came on. It was a beauty, a beaver flick made in the late 1970s. It was called Big Black Leather Splits. 1969, Harlan Ellison, “A Boy and His Dog”, in The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, New York: Open Road Media, published 2014
      Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don’t think it's crazy at all and I don’t think you do either. 1975, Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, directed by Miloš Forman, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (motion picture), spoken by Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson)
      Let’s get some of that Saturday night beaver. 1997, Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights (motion picture), spoken by Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly)
      The store sold beaver books, fuck-suck books, homo books, novels, films, slides, playing cards, dildoes, cock rings, S&M gear, and French ticklers. 2004, James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue! L.A. Tales, New York: Vintage Books, pages 127–128
      […] once she wore none at all, swears to this day that he saw her beaver that fateful Friday night. 2010, Dennis McFadden, Hart’s Grove: Stories
   2. (US, offensive) A woman, especially one who is sexually attractive.
      10-4, Beaver [CB talk for a female], we’re all going down to Plains tomorrow after Jimmy Carter wins. January 13, 1977, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, “Jimmy Carter: New South Burn”, in Rolling Stone, [San Francisco or New York], retrieved 2022-12-01

verb

1. To spot a beard in a game of beaver.
   Beavering of foreign visitors does not count. This is a rule, but it is never carried out. October 13, 1922, Roanoke World-News, Roanoke, Virginia, retrieved 2022-12-02, page 6