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A.Word.A.Day--bluebeard

Pronunciation Sound Clip RealAudio

This week's theme: words related to beards.

bluebeard (BLOO-beerd) noun

A man who marries and kills one wife after another.

[After Bluebeard, the nickname of the main character Raoul in a fairy tale by Charles Perrault (1628-1703). In the story, Bluebeard's wife finds the bodies of his previous wives in a room she was forbidden to enter. Yes, he did have a blue beard.]

See more usage examples of bluebeard in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"[The groom] may have to carry her spiritual guide, and perhaps her interior bluebeard, some brutal side of the feminine." Robert Bly; A Little Book on the Human Shadow; Harper; 1988.

X-Bonus

It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

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