Beard

How to spell beard

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce beard

What does beard mean?

1. nounThe hair that grows on a man's chin, jaw, and cheeks.

Beard in a sentence

• He trimmed his beard before the job interview.

• A thick grey beard covered most of his face.

Where does beard come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a very old native English word, descending directly from Old English 'beard', which already meant the hair growing on a man's chin and cheeks. It comes from a shared Germanic root that also produced Dutch 'baard' and German 'Bart', all carrying the same meaning. Linguists trace the form back further to an Indo-European root that surfaces in Latin 'barba', the source of words like 'barber' and 'barbecue' relatives such as 'barb'. The spelling has barely changed in over a thousand years, which is why it keeps the slightly unexpected 'ea' standing for the sound heard in 'fear' rather than in 'bead'. A later figurative verb, 'to beard', meaning to confront someone boldly, grew from the image of grabbing an opponent by the beard.

How the word is built

• beard (whole word; an ancient Germanic root with no separable prefix or suffix)