beaver

See also: Beaver

English

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Pronunciation

Etymology 1

    Category:English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Middle English#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Proto-Germanic#BEAVERCategory:English terms inherited from Middle English#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Old English#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰerH- (brown)#BEAVERCategory:English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European#BEAVERCategory:English terms inherited from Old English#BEAVER
    American beaver (Castor canadensis) (etymology 1, noun sense 1)

    From Middle EnglishCategory:English terms inherited from Middle English#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Middle English#BEAVER bever, from Old EnglishCategory:English terms inherited from Old English#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Old English#BEAVER befer, from Proto-West GermanicCategory:English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic#BEAVER *bebru, from Proto-GermanicCategory:English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Proto-Germanic#BEAVER *bebruz, from Proto-Indo-EuropeanCategory:English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European#BEAVERCategory:English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European#BEAVER *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”)Category:Sanskrit terms with non-redundant manual transliterations#BEAVER.

    Slang use to refer to a woman evolved from use to refer to pubic hair, which evolved from use to refer to beards, which evolved from use to refer to the furry animal or its fur.

    Noun

    beaver (countable and uncountable, plural beavers or (senses 1 and 4) beaver)Category:English lemmas#BEAVERCategory:English nouns#BEAVERCategory:English uncountable nouns#BEAVERCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVERCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVERCategory:English nouns with irregular plurals#BEAVERCategory:English indeclinable nouns#BEAVERCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BEAVERCategory:Pages with entries#BEAVERCategory:Pages with 1 entry#BEAVER

    2. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVER) A semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet, native to the Northern Hemisphere.
      • 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, page 112, lines 1117–1126:
        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.
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
    3. The fur of the beaver.
      Synonym: castorette
    4. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVER) A hat, of various shapes, made from a felted beaver fur (or later of silk), fashionable in Europe between 1550 and 1850.
      Synonyms: castor, (archaic) castoreum
    5. (Canada, USCategory:Canadian English#BEAVERCategory:American English#BEAVER) Beaver pelts as an article of exchange or as a standard of value.
    6. Beaver cloth, a heavy felted woollen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.
      Synonym: castor
    7. A brown colour, like that of a beaver.
      beaver:  
      Synonyms: beaver brown, castor
    8. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVER, backgammonCategory:en:Backgammon#BEAVER) 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.
    10. Alternative letter-case form of Beaver (“member of the youngest wing of the Scout movement”).
    12. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVER, slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER) A beard or a bearded person.
      Synonyms: beard, beardo, beardy
    14. (uncountableCategory:English uncountable nouns#BEAVER, historicalCategory:English terms with historical senses#BEAVER, slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER) A game, in which points are scored by spotting beards.
    16. (chiefly Canada, USCategory:Canadian English#BEAVERCategory:American English#BEAVER, slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER, countableCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVER) The pubic hair near a vulva or a vulva itself; (attributively) denoting films or literature featuring nude women.
      Synonyms: beav, (vulgar) nest
    17. (USCategory:American English#BEAVER, offensiveCategory:English offensive terms#BEAVER, slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER) A woman, especially one who is sexually attractive.
    Alternative forms
    Derived terms
    Translations
    See also

    Verb

    beaver (third-person singular simple present beavers, present participle beavering, simple past and past participle beavered)Category:English lemmas#BEAVERCategory:English verbs#BEAVERCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BEAVERCategory:Pages with entries#BEAVERCategory:Pages with 1 entry#BEAVER

    1. To form a felt-like texture, similar to the way beaver fur is used for felt-making.
      • 1799, Arthur Young, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln, London, page 155:
        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.
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
    3. To work hard.
      • 2017, Felicity Heal, “Changing Interpretations of the British Reformations”, in Ulinka Rublack, editor, The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 234:
        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.
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
    4. (logging, slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER) To cut a continuous ring around a tree that one is felling.
    5. (backgammonCategory:en:Backgammon#BEAVER) After being doubled, to immediately double the stakes again, a move that keeps the doubling cube on one’s own side of the board.
    6. (slangCategory:English slang#BEAVER) To spot a beard in a game of beaver.
      • 1922 October 13, Roanoke World-News‎, Roanoke, Virginia, retrieved 2 December 2022, page 6:
        Beavering of foreign visitors does not count. This is a rule, but it is never carried out.
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
    Usage notes

    Etymology 1, verb sense 2 is most frequently used in constructions such as beaver around, beaver away, and beaver on.

    Derived terms

    Etymology 2

    See bevor.

    Noun

    beaver (plural beavers)Category:English lemmas#BEAVERCategory:English nouns#BEAVERCategory:English countable nouns#BEAVERCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BEAVERCategory:Pages with entries#BEAVERCategory:Pages with 1 entry#BEAVER

    2. Alternative spelling of bevor (“part of a helmet”).
      • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
        Lord Stafford’s father, Duke of Buckingham,
        Is either slain or wounded dangerously;
        I cleft his beaver with a downright blow:
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
      • 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.”
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
        Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
      • 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, published 1992, page 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!
        Category:English terms with quotations#BEAVER
        Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned

    Etymology 3

    Noun

    beaverCategory:English lemmas#BEAVERCategory:English nouns#BEAVERCategory:English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals#BEAVERCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BEAVERCategory:Pages with entries#BEAVERCategory:Pages with 1 entry#BEAVER (UKCategory:British English#BEAVER, thieves' cantCategory:English Thieves' Cant#BEAVER, obsoleteCategory:English obsolete terms#BEAVER)

    1. Butter.

    References

    Further reading

    Category:en:Beards#BEAVERCategory:en:Genitalia#BEAVERCategory:en:Hair#BEAVERCategory:en:Headwear#BEAVERCategory:en:Browns#BEAVERCategory:en:Greys#BEAVERCategory:en:Colors#BEAVERCategory:en:Rodents#BEAVER Category:English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *bʰébʰrus#BEAVER
    Category:American English Category:British English Category:Canadian English Category:English 2-syllable words Category:English Thieves' Cant Category:English countable nouns Category:English indeclinable nouns Category:English lemmas Category:English nouns Category:English nouns with irregular plurals Category:English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals Category:English obsolete terms Category:English offensive terms Category:English slang Category:English terms derived from Middle English Category:English terms derived from Old English Category:English terms derived from Proto-Germanic Category:English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European Category:English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic Category:English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰerH- (brown) Category:English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *bʰébʰrus Category:English terms inherited from Middle English Category:English terms inherited from Old English Category:English terms 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