A.Word.A.Day --bluebeard

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Aug 19, 2013

This week's theme
Baddies from fiction

This week's words
bluebeard
procrustes
siren
gorgon
Dr. Strangelove

Bluebeard about to kill his last wife

Art: Frédéric Lix (1830-1897)

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

A few weeks ago we saw baddies from the real world, and now it's time to visit the rogues' gallery from fiction. This week we'll see a killer, a maimer, a seducer, a petrifier, and an evil scientist.

Which world do you think has worse baddies? Factual or fictional?

Bluebeard

PRONUNCIATION:

(BLOO-beerd)

MEANING:

noun: A man who marries and kills one wife after another.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Bluebeard, nickname of Raoul, the blue-bearded main character 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. The feminine equivalent of the word could be black widow. Earliest documented use: 1795.

USAGE:

"I'd always considered you more of a monk than a Bluebeard. This new pattern is somewhat a concern."
Cathy Maxwell; Treasured Vows; Avon; 2004.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

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