bear – English noun declension

English noun forms of bear

Noun: bear
Singularbear
Pluralbears

Sample Sentences

  • We had barbecued bear for dinner.
  • One evening about this time, when his Lordship did me the honour to sup at my lodgings with Dr. Robertson and several other men of literary distinction, he regretted that Johnson had not been educated with more refinement, and lived more in polished society. 'No, no, my Lord, (said Signor Baretti,) do with him what you would, he would always have been a bear.' [1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson:]
  • This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock. The fact is the reverse; it is a bear accompt, but the bears, unable to deliver their stock, have conjointly banged the market, and pocketed the tickets, to defeat the rise and loss that would have ensued to them by their buying on a rising price on the accompt day […] [1821, Bank of England, The Bank - The Stock Exchange - The Bankers ..., page 64:]
  • By the time we got into Tulsa Town
  • We had eighty-five trucks in all
  • But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf
  • And them bears was wall-to-wall.
  • Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper
  • They even had a bear in the air.
  • I says, "Callin' all trucks, this here's the Duck.
  • We about to go a-huntin' bear." [1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall:]
  • 'The bear's pulling somebody off there at 74,' reported someone else. [1976 June, CB Magazine, Oklahoma City: Communications Publication Corporation, June 40/3:]
  • He was listening for reports of Kojaks with Kodaks, or bear sightings (cop alerts) at his front door (ahead of him), especially plain wrappers (unmarked police cars) parked at specific yardsticks (mile-markers) taking pictures […] [2015, Matt Cashion, Last Words of the Holy Ghost, page 85:]
  • Bears are usually hunky, chunky types reminiscent of railroad engineers and former football greats. [[1979 July 26, George Mazzei, “Who's Who in the Zoo?: A Glossary of Gay Animals”, in Robert I. McQueen, editor, The Advocate, number 272, Liberation Publications, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Apr 2014, page 42:]
  • Bear sought by masculine white male, 30, 5'8", 165 lbs, for weekly safe encounter. I'm in a long-term relationship and seek outside fun. You: tall, masculine, over 200 lbs, discreet, moustache. [1990 December 9, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 21, page 12:]
  • I have everything it takes to be a bear: broad shoulders, full beard, semibald pate, and lots of body hair. But I don't want to be a fetish. [2004 April 27, Richard Goldstein, “Why I'm Not a Bear”, in The Advocate, number 913, page 72:]
  • There are numerous social organizations for bears in most parts of the United States. Lesbians don't have such prominent sexual subcultures as gay men, although, as just mentioned, some lesbians are into BDSM practices. [2006, Simon LeVay, Sharon McBride Valente, Human sexuality:]
  • Bunyip Bluegum was a tidy bear, he objected to whisker soup[.] [1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 8:]
  • That window can be a bear to open.
  • "This was a real bear to refinish. You can't believe how hard it was right here to get a thousand years of crud out of this carving." [2014, Joe Buda, Pilgrims' Passage: Into a New Millennium; Rebuilding the Past:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der.?
3. Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der.
4. Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer-der.
5. Proto-Germanic *berô
6. Proto-West Germanic *berō
7. Old English bera
8. Middle English bere
9. English bear
10. From Middle English bere, from Old English bera, from Proto-West Germanic *berō, from Proto-Germanic *berô (“bear”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”).
11. Cognates
12. Cognate with North Frisian beer (“bear”), Saterland Frisian Boar, Boare (“bear”), West Frisian bear (“bear”), Cimbrian and Mòcheno per (“bear”), Dutch beer (“bear”), German Bär (“bear”), German Low German Boor (“bear”), Limburgish baer, Béër (“bear”), Luxembourgish Bier (“bear”), Vilamovian baor, bar (“bear”), West Flemish beir (“bear”), Yiddish בער (ber, “bear”), Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian Bokmål bjørn (“bear”), Icelandic and Swedish björn (“bear”), Norwegian Nynorsk bjøinn, bjønn, bjørn (“bear”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌰 (*baira, “bear”); also Latin fiber (“beaver”), Greek φρύνος (frýnos, “toad”), Latvian bērs (“bay, brown”), Lithuanian bėras (“bay, reddish brown”), Belarusian бабёр (babjór, “beaver”), Bulgarian бобър (bobăr, “beaver”), Czech bobr (“beaver”), Macedonian дабар (dabar, “beaver”), Polish bober, bóbr (“beaver”) Russian бобёр (bobjór), бобр (bobr, “beaver”), Serbo-Croatian да̀бар, dàbar (“beaver”), Slovak bobor (“beaver”), Slovene bober (“beaver”), Ukrainian бобе́р (bobér, “beaver”), Armenian բորենի (boreni, “hyena”), Avestan 𐬠𐬀𐬡𐬭𐬀 (baβra, “beaver”), Northern Kurdish bor (“grey”), Ossetian бур (bur, “yellow”), Persian بور (bur, “blonde, fair; bay, reddish brown; brown”), Yaghnobi вур (vur, “brown”), Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhru, “ichneumon, mongoose”).
13. etymology notes
14. This is generally taken to be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“shining, brown”) (compare Tocharian A parno, Tocharian B perne (“radiant, luminous”), Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)), related to brown, bruin, and beaver.
15. On this theory, the Germanic languages replaced the older name of the bear, *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, with the epithet "brown one", presumably due to taboo avoidance; compare Russian медве́дь (medvédʹ, “bear”, literally “honey-eater”).
16. However, Ringe (2006:106) doubts the existence of a root *bʰer- meaning "brown" ("an actual PIE word of [the requisite] shape and meaning is not recoverable") and suggests that a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer- (“wild animal”) "should therefore perhaps be preferred", implying a Germanic merger of *ǵʰw and *gʷʰ (*gʷʰ may sometimes result in Germanic *b, perhaps e.g. in *bidjaną, but it also seems to have given the g in gun and the w in warm). See: Middle English Nouns 'bere', Old English Nouns 'bera', Dutch Nouns 'beer', German Nouns 'Bär', Latin Nouns 'fiber', Greek Nouns 'φρύνος', Belarusan Nouns 'бабёр', Bulgarian Nouns 'бобър', Czech Nouns 'bobr', Polish Nouns 'bober', Russian Nouns 'бобёр', Slovak Nouns 'bobor'.

Verbs referencing "bear"

German Nouns Bär, Latin Nouns fors, Irish Nouns béar, Latvian Nouns bērns, German Nouns Urbar.