Bearded

How to spell bearded

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bearded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bearded mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a beard, or marked by a growth of hair on the chin and cheeks.

Bearded in a sentence

• The bearded man at the counter signed for the parcel.

• A bearded dragon makes a popular and easy-going pet lizard.

Where does bearded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows straight out of the Old English noun beard, which simply named the hair that grows on a man's chin and cheeks. That noun has deep Germanic roots and is closely related to the Dutch baard and the German Bart, all tracing back to a shared ancestor that also gave Latin its word barba, the source of 'barber' and 'barbarian'. The adjective form was made in the ordinary English way, by adding the suffix -ed to mean 'furnished with' or 'having', so bearded literally means 'having a beard'. The spelling has stayed remarkably faithful to its Old English shape, which is why it keeps the slightly counterintuitive 'ea' vowel cluster rather than being written the way it sounds. From describing men, the word later spread to animals and plants that look as if they bear bristles or tufts, such as bearded dragons and bearded irises.

How the word is built

• beard (Old English beard: the hair on a man's chin)
• -ed (adjective suffix meaning 'having')