Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One of an ancient Celtic order of minstrel poets who composed and recited verses celebrating the legendary exploits of chieftains and heroes.
  • noun A poet, especially a lyric poet.
  • noun A piece of armor used to protect or ornament a horse.
  • transitive verb To equip (a horse) with bards.
  • transitive verb To cover (meat) in thin pieces of bacon or fat to preserve moisture during cooking.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To caparison with bards, as a horse; to furnish or accoutre with armor, as a man.
  • noun Any one of the pieces of defensive armor used in medieval Europe to protect the horse.
  • noun Hence plural The housings of a horse, used in tourneys, justs, and processions during the later middle ages. They were most commonly of stuff woven or embroidered with the arms of the rider.
  • noun plural Armor of metal plates, worn in the sixteenth century and later. See armor.
  • noun A poet and singer among the ancient Celts; one whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honor of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men, and on other subjects, generally to the accompaniment of the harp.
  • noun Formerly, in Scotland, a strolling musician; a minstrel: classed with vagabonds, as an object of penal laws.
  • noun In modern use, a poet: as, the bard of Avon (Shakspere); the Ayrshire bard (Burns).
  • noun A scold: applied only to women.
  • To cover with thin bacon, as a bird or meat to be roasted.
  • noun A strip of bacon used to cover a fowl or meat in roasting.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A professional poet and singer, as among the ancient Celts, whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honor of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men.
  • noun Hence: A poet.
  • noun A piece of defensive (or, sometimes, ornamental) armor for a horse's neck, breast, and flanks; a barb. [Often in the pl.]
  • noun Defensive armor formerly worn by a man at arms.
  • noun (Cookery) A thin slice of fat bacon used to cover any meat or game.
  • noun The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree; the rind.
  • noun Specifically, Peruvian bark.
  • noun See Bark stove (below).
  • noun a pit filled with bark and water, in which hides are steeped in tanning.
  • noun (Hort.) a glazed structure for keeping tropical plants, having a bed of tanner's bark (called a bark bed) or other fermentable matter which produces a moist heat.
  • transitive verb (Cookery) To cover (meat or game) with a thin slice of fat bacon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A professional poet and singer, as among the ancient Celts, whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honor of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men.
  • noun Hence: A poet; as, the bard of Avon.
  • noun A piece of defensive (or, sometimes, ornamental) armor for a horse's neck, breast, and flanks; a barb. (Often in the plural.)
  • noun Defensive armor formerly worn by a man at arms.
  • noun cooking A thin slice of fat bacon used to cover any meat or game.
  • noun The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree; the rind.
  • noun Specifically, Peruvian bark.
  • verb To cover a horse in defensive armor.
  • verb cooking To cover (meat or game) with a thin slice of fat bacon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a lyric poet
  • verb put a caparison on
  • noun an ornamental caparison for a horse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Irish and Scottish Gaelic bard and from Welsh bardd; see gwerə- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English barde, from Old French, from Old Italian barda, from Arabic barda‘a, packsaddle, from Persian pardah; see purdah.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A 15th century loan of Scottish Gaelic bard.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French barde. English since the late 15th century.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Drab in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • BARD - (verb) - Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow."

    Usage: "My brother bard my pickup truck."

    April 8, 2008

  • T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot-toilet.

    October 18, 2008

  • town in kentucky renown for its spirit, bardstown. its not drab.

    February 8, 2009

  • specifically, a Peruvian bark - Webster's 1913 Dictionary

    March 10, 2011

  • The famous woofing poets of the Andes...arrff!

    March 10, 2011

  • JM knows that hanging out with a poet is keeping bard company.

    August 26, 2011