barbe

• IPA^(key): /baʁb/

• Audio:

  (file)

 

Inherited from Middle French barbe, from Old French barbe, from Latin barba, from earlier *farba, from Proto-Italic *farβā, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂ (“beard”).

barbe f (plural barbes)

1. beard

   Il a une barbe bien fournie. ― He has a luxurious beard.

   Je vais peut-être me laisser pousser la barbe. ― Maybe I'll let my beard grow.

   Certaines personnes mettent plusieurs années avant d’obtenir une barbe dure, d’autres n’y parvenant jamais.

   Some people take several years before obtaining a strong beard, others never succeed.

   • 1910, Alain, Propos:

     Je regardais hier le buste d’un philanthrope ; c’était une tête à moitié chauve, une barbe en pointe, et l’air d’un sous-chef à son bureau.

     Yesterday I was looking at the bust of a philanthropist; it was a half-bald head, a pointy beard, and the look of a sous-chef at his office.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. longer hair growing on the chin or face of some animals

   La barbe d’une chèvre, d’un bouc.

   The beard of a goat, of a billygoat.

3. barbel (whisker-like sensory organs, located around the mouth of certain fish)

   Les barbes du brochet.

   The barbels of the pike.

4. barb (feather)

   Le duvet est constitué de petites plumes légères dont les barbes ne sont pas enchevêtrées.

   The duvet is made of small, light feathers whose barbs are not tangled.

5. (botany) barb (hair or bristle)
   • 1858, Théophile Gautier, Le Roman de la momie:

     La besogne des bœufs terminée, vinrent des serviteurs qui, armés d’écopes de bois, élevaient le blé en l’air et le laissaient retomber pour le séparer des pailles, des barbes et des cosses.

     The work of the oxen finished, servants came who, armed with wooden scoops, lifted the wheat into the air and let it fall back to separate the straw, the barbs, and the seed pods.

6. (colloquial) a boring thing, a drag

   Quelle barbe ! ― What a bore!

• barbe à papa
• barbe de trois jours
• la barbe
• sainte barbe
• au nez et à la barbe
• dans sa barbe
• parler dans sa barbe
• rire dans sa barbe

 

Borrowed from Italian barbero, barbaro.

barbe (plural barbes)

1. (of a horse) Barbary

   un cheval barbe ― a Barbary horse, a Barb horse

barbe m (plural barbes)

1. Barbary horse

   Les barbes d’Abaco étaient une toute petite population de chevaux barbes espagnols sauvages sur les îles Abacos.

   The Abaco Barbs were a very small population of wild Spanish Barb horses on the Abaco Islands.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

barbe

1. inflection of barber:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “barbe”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
•   barbe on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr

From Latin barba, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂.

barbe f (plural barbis)

1. beard

From the above term, due to the fact that a beard represents a grown or mature man. Compare Romansh, Italian, and Piedmontese barba, Dalmatian buarba.

barbe m

1. uncle

• agne

barbe f pl

1. plural of barba

• ebbra

From Old French barbe, from Latin barba, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂.

barbe f (plural barbes)

1. beard

• French: barbe

 

From Old French barbe, from Latin barba, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂.

barbe f (plural barbes)

1. (Jersey) beard
2. (Jersey) eaves

• barbe d'gardîngni (“thin beard”)
• barbe d'la reine (“love-in-a-mist”, literally “queen's beard”)
• barbe d'sapeur (“thick beard”)

• barbiche

From Latin barba, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰeh₂.

barbe oblique singular, f (oblique plural barbes, nominative singular barbe, nominative plural barbes)

1. beard

• barbier
  • French: barbier (see there for further descendants)
  • → Middle Dutch: barbier
    • Dutch: barbier (see there for further descendants)
• Anglo-Norman: barbour (see there for further descendants)

• Middle French: barbe
  • French: barbe
• Jersey Norman: barbe
• Walloon: båbe

barbe

1. inflection of barbar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative