• (British) IPA: /bɪəd/
• (America) IPA: /bɪɹd/, /biɚd/

beard (plural beards)

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.
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. A barb or sharp point of an arrow or other instrument, projecting backward to prevent the head from being easily drawn out.
9. The curved underside of an axehead, extending from the lower end of the cutting edge to the axehandle.
10. That part of the underside of a horse's lower jaw which is above the chin, and bears the curb of a bridle.
11. (printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.
12. (LGBT, slang) A fake customer or companion, especially a woman who accompanies a gay man in order to give the impression that he is heterosexual.

• French: barbe
• German: Bart
• Italian: barba
• Portuguese: barba
• Russian: борода́
• Spanish: barba

• German: Alibifreundin
• Italian: appuntamento di copertura
• Russian: чайка
• Spanish: jotera, pantalla

beard (beards, present participle bearding; past and past participle bearded)

1. (obsolete) To grow hair on the chin and jaw.
2. 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.

   • 18, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify ), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323 ↗:

   • 1943, Crockett Johnson, Barnaby, December 6, 1943

     We need all our operatives to insure the success of my plan to beard this Claus in his den...

   • 1963, Ross Macdonald, The Chill, pg.92, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

     . . . I bearded the judge in his chambers and told him that it shouldn't be allowed.

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. (LGBT, slang, ambitransitive) 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.
   • 1993, David Michael Robinson, Mollies are Not the Only Fruit (page 39)

     Lesbians and homosexual men bearding one another (i.e. providing each other with the public appearance of being heterosexual); […]

• Spanish: barbar

• Russian: смело выступа́ть против
• Spanish: provocar, mortificar

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