beardless

Lacking a beard.

Adjective

  1. Lacking a beard.
    • A eunuch is a negative creature. A beardless Moslem is contemptuously designated as manless. - 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii:
    • Distinctly slender (willowy), quietly fem/androgynous, beardless chap who can wear clothes and speak well is what I'm hoping to find. - 1987 February 1, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number...

    Synonyms: smooth-faced

  2. Not having reached puberty or manhood; youthful.
    • shall a beardless boy, Cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields, And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil, Mocking the air with colours idly spread, And find no check? - 1596, Shakespeare, King John, Act 4, Scene 1:
  3. Lacking an awn.
    • beardless wheat
  4. Lacking a beard (a defined patch of feathers below the beak).

Origin

From Middle English bērdlēs, from Old English beardlēas (“beardless”), from Proto-West Germanic *bardalaus (“beardless”), equivalent to beard + -less. Cognate with Scots berdles (“beardless”), Saterland Frisian boartloos (“beardless”), West Frisian burdleas (“beardless”), Dutch baardeloos (“beardless”), German Low German baartlos (“beardless”), German bartlos (“beardless”).

Forms

more beardless most beardless

Related

beard bearded beardedness debeard unbeard

Derived

beardlessness