greybeard
(ˈgreɪbɪəd)
Also graybeard.
1. A man with a grey beard; hence (often contemptuously) an old man.
| 1579–80 North Plutarch (1676) 524 An old gray-beard. 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. ii. i. 340 Gre. Yongling thou canst not loue so deare as I. Tra. Gray-beard thy loue doth freeze. 1662 J. Davies tr. Mandelslo's Trav. 262 There are few gray-beards seen there, and few Christians reach 50. 1768 Foote Devil on 2 Sticks (1778) 23 It is I that couple..girls and greybeards together. 1826 Polwhele Trad. & Recoll. I. ii. 43 [She] was receiving homage at Bath from greybeards and from boys. 1886 Besant Childr. Gibeon ii. vi, Questions which have baffled all the grey-beards. |
2. A large earthenware or stoneware jug or jar, used for holding spirits.
| 1788 G. Wilson Collect. Songs. 67 (Jam.) Whate'er he laid his fangs on, Be't hogshead, anker, grey-beard, pack. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. li, So long as her best greybeard of brandy was upon duty. 1866 Cornh. Mag. Mar. 355 Neither a mere jar, nor simply a basket, but one of those compounds of both, well known under the name of ‘grey-beard’, which are devoted to the conveyance of usque⁓baugh. 1885 J. H. Middleton in Encycl. Brit. XIX. 631/1 Stoneware jug or ‘greybeard’; Flemish ware, early 17th century. 1894 Crockett Raiders 150 There was not a farmer's grey-beard between the Lothians and the Solway filled with spirit that had done obeisance to King George. |
3. ? = grey-fish (see grey a. 8 b). Cf. greyhead 2.
| 1769 De Foe's Tour Gt. Brit. (ed. 7) IV. 19 Pike, Scate, Greybeard, Mackerel..Soles, Flukes..are also caught. |
4. A hydroid polyp which infests oyster-beds, Sertularia argentea.
| In recent Dicts. |
5. attrib. greybeard lichen (see quot. 1885).
| 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuffe 3 Those gray beard huddle-duddles..were strooke with..remorse. a 1634 Randolph Muse's Looking-Glass ii. iv, No, no, Asotus, trust grey-beard experience. 1770 Goldsm. Des. Vill. 222 That house..Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retir'd. 1780 Cowper Progr. Err. 342 Petronius!.. Thou..Grey-beard corrupter of our listening youth. 1798 Coleridge Anc. Mar. i. iii, Unhand me, grey-beard loon! 1807–8 W. Irving Salmag. xx. (1860) 450 This honest gray-beard custom..handed down to us from our worthy Dutch ancestors. 1885 G. L. Goodale Physiol. Bot. 191 The common graybeard lichen, Usnea barbata. |