beaver
English
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 229: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "RP" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈbiːvə/
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 229: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GA" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. enPR: bēʹvər, IPA(key): /ˈbivɚ/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -iːvə(ɹ)
- Homophones: Belvoir, bever, bevor
Etymology 1
From Middle English bever, from Old English beofor (“beaver”), from Proto-Germanic *bebruz (“beaver”) (compare West Frisian bever, Dutch bever, French bièvre, German Biber, dialectal Swedish bjur), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰébʰrus (“beaver”) (compare Welsh befer, Latin fiber, Lithuanian bẽbras, Russian бобр (bobr), Avestan 𐬠𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬭𐬀 (bauura), 𐬠𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬭𐬌 (bauuri), Sanskrit बभ्रु (bábhru, “mongoose; ichneumon”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”). Related to brown and bear.
Noun
beaver (plural beavers or beaver)
- A semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet.
- A hat, of various shapes, made from a felted beaver fur (or later of silk), fashionable in Europe between 1550 and 1850.
- (Can we date this quote by Prescott and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
- a brown beaver slouched over his eyes
- 1896: For the White Rose of Arno by Owen Rhoscomyl
- The woman's hair and woman's beaver had both been jerked off, exposing the cropped head of a man...
- (Can we date this quote by Prescott and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
- (vulgar, slang) The pubic hair and/or vulva of a woman.
- 2010 Dennis McFadden, Hart's Grove: Stories
- […] 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
- The fur of the beaver.
- Beaver cloth, a heavy felted woollen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.
- A brown colour, like that of a beaver (also called beaver brown).
- beaver:
- (slang) A man who wears a beard.
- 1936 P.G. Wodehouse, Laughing Gas:
- 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:
Derived terms
Translations
semiaquatic rodent
|
hat made from felted beaver fur
|
coarse slang: pubic hair/vulva of a woman
|
fur
|
heavy felted woollen cloth
colour
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See also
Etymology 2
See bevor.
Noun
beaver (plural beavers)
- Alternative spelling of bevor (“part of a helmet”)
- c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene 1,[1]
- Lord Stafford’s father, Duke of Buckingham,
- Is either slain or wounded dangerously;
- I cleft his beaver with a downright blow:
- 1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XII, lxvii:
- With trembling hands her beaver he untied, / Which done, he saw, and seeing knew her face.
- 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:
- 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.”
- 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.
- 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness, Faber & Faber 1992, p.128:
- 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!
- c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene 1,[1]
References
- The Manual of Heraldry, Fifth Edition, by Anonymous, London, 1862, online at [2]
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/iːvə(ɹ)
- English terms with homophones
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English indeclinable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- Requests for date/Prescott
- English vulgarities
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- en:Beards
- en:Hair
- en:Headwear
- en:Browns
- en:Rodents