beaver
pronunciation
How to pronounce beaver in British English:
UK [ˈbiːvə(r)]
How to pronounce beaver in American English:
US [ˈbiːvər]
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- Noun:
- the soft brown fur of the beaver
- a full beard
- a man's hat with a tall crown; usually covered with beaver or silk
- a movable piece of armor on a medieval helmet used to protect the lower face
- a hat made of beaver fur or similar material
- large semiaquatic rodent with webbed hind feet and a broad flat tail; construct complex dams and underwater lodges
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- Verb:
- work hard on something
Word Origin
- beaver
- beaver: [OE] Like bear, beaver appears to mean etymologically ‘brown animal’. Old English beofor or befor came from a prehistoric West and North Germanic *bebruz, which in turn went back to an Indo-European *bhebhrús, a derivative of the base *bhru- ‘brown’. Other words for ‘beaver’ from the same source include Czech bobr, Lithuanian bebrùs, and Latin fiber.
- beaver (n.)
- Old English beofor, befer (earlier bebr), from Proto-Germanic *bebruz (cognates: Old Saxon bibar, Old Norse bjorr, Middle Dutch and Dutch bever, Low German bever, Old High German bibar, German Biber), from PIE *bhebhrus, reduplication of root *bher- (3) "brown, bright" (cognates: Lithuanian bebrus, Czech bobr, Welsh befer; see bear (n.) for the likely reason for this). Gynecological sense ("female genitals, especially with a display of pubic hair") is 1927 British slang, transferred from earlier meaning "a bearded man" (1910), from the appearance of split beaver pelts.
Example
- 1. The beaver has always been associated with hard work .
- 2. Amazing aerial view : a de havilland beaver biplane delivers scuba divers to hook and hardy reef on the great barrier reef , australia
- 3. Nobody knows who red ryder was , let alone that his sidekick was little beaver .
- 4. Sometimes I felt like I was a wild boy , or a beaver sliding through the water .
- 5. Lots of animals build homes for protection-think beaver lodges or termite mounds .