beaver

plural beavers · alternative Beaver

1. countableA semiaquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having a wide, flat tail and webbed feet, native to the Northern Hemisphere.

   1 more example

   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.

   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

2. countableuncountableThe fur of the beaver.

   Synonyms: castorette

3. countableA hat, of various shapes, made from a felted beaver fur (or later of silk), fashionable in Europe between 1550 and 1850.

   a broad beaver slouched over his eyes

   1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC

   1 more example

   The woman's hair and woman's beaver had both been jerked off, exposing the cropped head of a man...

   1896, Owen Rhoscomyl, For the White Rose of Arno

   Synonyms: castor, castoreum

4. CanadaUScountableuncountableBeaver pelts as an article of exchange or as a standard of value.
5. countableuncountableBeaver cloth, a heavy felted woollen cloth, used chiefly for making overcoats.

   Synonyms: castor

6. countableuncountableA brown colour, like that of a beaver.

   Synonyms: beaver brown, castor

7. countablebackgammonA 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.
8. countableuncountableAlternative letter-case form of Beaver (“member of the youngest wing of the Scout movement”).
9. countableslangA beard or a bearded person.

   The beards were false ones. I could see the elastic going over their ears. In other words, I had fallen among a band of criminals who were not wilful beavers, but had merely assumed the fungus for purposes of disguise.

   1936, P. G. Wodehouse, Laughing Gas

   Synonyms: beard, beardo, beardy

10. historicalslanguncountableA game, in which points are scored by spotting beards.
11. CanadaUScountableslangThe pubic hair near a vulva or a vulva itself; (attributively) denoting films or literature featuring nude women.

    Let’s get some of that Saturday night beaver.

    1997, Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights (motion picture), spoken by Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly)

    4 more examples

    Finally it came on. It was a beauty, a beaver flick made in the late 1970s. It was called Big Black Leather Splits.

    1969, Harlan Ellison, “A Boy and His Dog”, in The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, New York: Open Road Media, published 2014, →ISBN

    Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don’t think it's crazy at all and I don’t think you do either.

    1975, Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, directed by Miloš Forman, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (motion picture), spoken by Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson)

    The store sold beaver books, fuck-suck books, homo books, novels, films, slides, playing cards, dildoes, cock rings, S&M gear, and French ticklers.

    2004, James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue! L.A. Tales, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, pages 127–128

    […] once she wore none at all, swears to this day that he saw her beaver that fateful Friday night.

    2010, Dennis McFadden, Hart’s Grove: Stories

    Synonyms: beav, nest

12. UScountableoffensiveslanguncountableA woman, especially one who is sexually attractive.

    “10-4, Beaver [CB talk for a female], we’re all going down to Plains tomorrow after Jimmy Carter wins.”

    1977 January 13, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, “Jimmy Carter: New South Burn”, in Rolling Stone, [San Francisco or New York], retrieved 01 Dec 2022

present singular third person beavers · participle present beavering · participle past beavered · past beavered

1. To form a felt-like texture, similar to the way beaver fur is used for felt-making.

   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.

   1799, Arthur Young, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln, London, page 155

2. To work hard.

   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.

   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

3. slangloggingTo cut a continuous ring around a tree that one is felling.
4. backgammonAfter being doubled, to immediately double the stakes again, a move that keeps the doubling cube on one’s own side of the board.
5. slangTo spot a beard in a game of beaver.

   Beavering of foreign visitors does not count. This is a rule, but it is never carried out.

   1922 October 13, Roanoke World-News, Roanoke, Virginia, retrieved 02 Dec 2022, page 6

plural beavers

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of bevor (“part of a helmet”).

   With trembling hands her beaver he untied, / Which done, he saw, and seeing knew her face.

   1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XII, lxvii

   4 more examples

   Lord Stafford’s father, Duke of Buckingham, Is either slain or wounded dangerously; I cleft his beaver with a downright blow:

   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]

   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.”

   1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

   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.

   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!

   1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 128

1. Butter.

   Butter – Beaver.

   [1754, The Scoundrel’s Dictionary, London, page 15

plural Beavers · alternative Beever

1. countableA surname.
2. A number of places in the United States:
   1. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska.
   2. countableuncountableA town in Carroll County, Arkansas.
   3. countableuncountableA minor city in Amaqua Township, Boone County, Iowa.
   4. countableuncountableA township and census-designated place therein, in Barton County, Kansas.
   5. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Floyd County, Kentucky.
   6. countableuncountableA township and unincorporated community therein, in Bay County, Michigan.
   7. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Baldwin Township, Delta County, Michigan.
   8. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Whitewater Township, Winona County, Minnesota.
   9. countableuncountableA village in Pike County, Ohio.
   10. countableuncountableA town, the county seat of Beaver County, Oklahoma.
   11. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Tillamook County, Oregon.
   12. countableuncountableA borough, the county seat of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
   13. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Beaver County, Utah.
   14. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Clallam County, Washington.
   15. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Raleigh County, West Virginia.
   16. countableuncountableA town in Clark County, Wisconsin.
   17. countableuncountableA town and unincorporated community therein, in Marinette County, Wisconsin.
   18. countableuncountableA town in Polk County, Wisconsin.
   19. countableuncountableA number of other townships in the United States, listed under Beaver Township.

plural Beavers · alternative beaver

1. A native or resident of the American state of Oregon.
2. A member of the youngest wing of the Scout movement, composed of groups for children, traditionally boys, of approximately five to seven years of age.

1. datedThe Dane-zaa people, indigenous to northern Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.

plural Beavers

1. Alternative letter-case form of beaver (“beard-spotting game”).