Talk:bear

old talk

I have added 'borne' as a past participle (e.g. "the chair was borne aloft", "the rival racers have borne down on him") - clearly there's also "born" (for childbirth) but I can't formally express the difference so perhaps somebody else will. 86.131.93.66 20:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Does the Maltese word really have an = in the middle? Wiki obviously doesn't like the idea--the link doesn't work. I think if it is correct, it needs to be replaced by =. -- Ortonmc 19:40, 16 January 2004 (UTC)

I found the answer; the = looks to have been an editing mistake. -- Ortonmc 23:13, 16 January 2004 (UTC)

Inaccurate definition:

1. A large carnivorous mammal....

Bears are typically omnivorous, not carnivorous. Though they do belong to the order Carnivora. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear#Habitat) -- 24.33.78.150 11:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Please be bold and change that which you feel is inaccurate! — Vildricianus 11:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

5. (slang) A large hairy man, especially one who is gay.

Surely this is only used as a metaphor and stating it as a definition is inaccurate. -- SaveFerris 08:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, slang or otherwise, is this a US. usage? I've not ever heard it in the UK. -- 81.134.131.2 08:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It is U.S. usage for sure. Don’t know about England. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

RFV 1

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In the sense: "A market in which prices are falling." DAVilla 16:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A bull market vs. a bear market - clearly in widespread use, I'd think. What exactly is the complaint? --Connel MacKenzie 17:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the word "bear" (as noun) alone does not mean "bear market" AFAIK. As a noun it does refer to investors who take the "bear" position of shorting securities. Let's make sure that we have an adequate adjectival sense and, perhaps, a usage example containing "bear market". DCDuring 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete A "bear" in a financial market is a person or other actor who believes that the stock prices will be falling and acts accordingly. This sense is covered in #3. "Bear" is also used as adjective in expressions like "bear market" or "bear sentiment". This sense is also covered in the entry. As far as I know, the word "bear" alone does not mean the same as "bear market", and unless appropriate quotes are provided, sense #4 should be deleted. Hekaheka 15:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Expression

How does the expression "brought to bear" fit in? — This unsigned comment was added by 129.215.25.154 (talk) at 12:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC).

It is an idiom derived from the second sense of the English word bear and now has its own entry: bring to bear. I have added it to the list of derived terms in this entry. —Caesura^(t) 16:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Other animals

I have never heard of a Koala bear or an ant bear being called just a bear, without the other word. Redddogg 04:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Bear as an adverb.

In Northern England we very rarely write it down, as it's only really used in speech, but when written it is always spelled 'bare'. It can also have the same meaning as 'lots of'. e.g. 'I have bare homework to do'. 'Bare scran' is a phrase often used in Manchester, meaning lots of food. Perhaps the adverb entry should be moved to bare.

This sounds more like an adjective. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 19:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

See WT:RFV#bear and bare. DCDuring TALK 00:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Better example sentence

The current example sentence for usage of the 'large hairy man' definition seems unpleasant ('greedy hands'?). Can we not produce a more neutral depiction? Remarkably

The point is that the example sentence is unreferenced. If at all possible, we should avoid example sentences which were just made up, even by native speakers. There is enough English literature on the internet to come up with a referenced example sentence, one should think. --130.60.142.82 09:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• well, OED has "a rough, unmannerly, uncouth person", recorded since 1579. A "large hairy man" might be subsumed under that, but the more specific slang meaning in homosexual subculture doesn't necessarily fit under that; even if the "rough" is retained, the "uncouth" etc. is not intended any longer. But this subculture slang meaning is not recorded in OED, so we would need some other quotable source for it. We are also missing a referece for the meaning "difficult situation". --Dbachmann (talk) 10:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• • if we can use urbandictionary.com, we would have "A term used by gay men to describe a husky, large man with a lot of body hair", example sentence George's sexual tastes run toward bears, contributed "by kim Feb 12, 2003". Not exactly a top quality reference, but it's better than nothing. --Dbachmann (talk) 10:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Just added two citations from books/mags. Equinox ◑ 10:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

excellent, you beat me to it. The earliest record I could find was 1990, which sounds about right, as most of current gay slang originates around there. I removed the "difficult situation" meaning pending substantiation. --Dbachmann (talk) 10:15, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

"Ringe (2006)"

Who is "Ringe (2006)" and how do they suggest IE ǵʰweh₁r- is supposed to result in Germanic ber-? It's fair enough to cite this opinion if it was published in an academic journal, but the source must be identified. --User:Dbachmann 09:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• I assume "Ringe 2006" must be: Ringe, Donald A. (2006). From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Linguistic history of English, v. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. →ISBN. Now we just need a page number and a check that this author seriously derives ber- from "ǵʰweh₁r". --Dbachmann (talk) 10:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
  • fixed. --Dbachmann (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

RFV 2

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process.

Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
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Rfv-sense: Adverb: (UK, slang) very

You rang me last night but it was bear late and I didn't answer.

An objection to this spelling was made at the talk page, that this might belong at [[bare#Adverb]], where it already occurs. Are both spellings attestable? Which is more common? What is the appropriate etymology? They both seem like alterations of very to a standard English speaker like me. DCDuring TALK 20:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Never come across this. Not in Chambers. I bet it's Northern. Equinox ◑ 20:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This source has bear as an alternative spelling to bare, an adverbial and adjectival intensifier. Further they cite a source that claims it derives from a Trinidadian use of bare ("barely") and is now part of UK Black English. A recent Partirdge's has "bare adverb very, many. UK 2005" DCDuring TALK 23:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be a little light on coverage of Template:trf (See Category:Trinidad Creole English Language.), though thus might be from "Trinidad English". DCDuring TALK 00:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

@Equinox, not my part of Northern England. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

RFV-failed for now. - -sche (discuss) 21:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It's bare. I just found it mentioned in Dr Sue Fox, "Spoken English" (in Language - A Student Handbook on Key Topics and Theories), as a term used by young Londoners. Equinox ◑ 12:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

born vs. borne

"Born" is hardly rare. I took some common digrams of "born __" and "borne __" and ran Google searches for each phrase with each spelling.

Google hits for some common phrases with "born(e)",
using "born" and "borne" in each
2014-02-06

born	borne	borne / total	born / borne
"was born" 459,000,000	"was borne" 7,140,000	1.53%	64
"born in" 346,000,000	"borne in" [1] 6,130,000	1.74%	56
"born on" 162,000,000	"borne on" 1,260,000	0.77%	129
"born to" 111,000,000	"borne to" 579,000	0.52%	192
ttl "born __" [3] 1,078M	ttl "borne __" [3] 15M	1.41%	70
all born [4] 2170M	all borne [4] 114M	4.99%	19
"born to him" [2] 1,100,000	"borne to him" [2] 362,000	24.76%	3

Table notes

1. Many of these are forms of "be borne in upon", defined by Oxford Dictionaries as:

   come to be realized by: the folly of her action was borne in on her with devastating precision (American English definition)

2. "-Bible". Without the exclusion, the numbers are roughly double these. Even with it, perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the hits are Biblical or religious, and many others are pre-modern (e.g., "borne+to+him"+-Bible The Early Records of the Town of Providence) or heroic fantasy (which may deliberately use archaisms). But in any case the numbers in this row are minuscule compared with the totals.
3. Totals of the rows above.
4. Total hits for "born", "borne" regardless of context.

In modern English, in general:

• "Born" is used in forms of "to be born" referring to the subject's birth:
  • X was born in/on/during/... [place|date|...].
• The much rarer "borne" is used in forms of "bear" in the senses of carrying or enduring:
  • "borne on the wind" (usually used of sounds)
  • "Icarus - Borne On Wings Of Steel" (title of a song by Kerry Livgren on the 1975 album Masque by the American progressive rock band Kansas.
  • This is not to be borne! (= "This is intolerable!")
• Both spellings are used in the construction "be born(e) to Y", in the sense of childbirth, where Y refers to one or both parents or to the family or larger group that Y is said to belong to:
  • Ludacris Also Has A New Baby Born To Him By A Woman That's Not His Fiancee (title of a blog post dated 2 January 2014 in "This Is Laila's Blog: Nigeria's Finest Celebrity News Source")
  • father to a child borne to him by Lorcha Cohen (daughter of Leonard) (from an interview with Rufus Wainwright by Tony Clayton-Lea, dated Sep. 24, 2012)

--Thnidu (talk) 01:09, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

born is only common as a passive past participle relating to childbirth, as the usage note states --WikiTiki89 01:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

"(rare) born" again

The spelling born is not "rare", but rather is confined to certain specific meanings and contexts ("he wishes he had never been born" etc.). I really don't know why it says "rare"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It's rare as the past participle of bear. It is only common in the expression "to be born" (which we should probably have an entry for rather than a redirect). --WikiTiki89 15:29, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

How is "killed" in "He was killed" different from "born" in "He was born"? Either "born" isn't a real past/passive participle at all (something you would have to justify in more detail), or else it's not "rare", but in fact quite common in its particular context. It seems to me that both "killed" and "born" are adjectivizable to some degree, but are basically past/passive participles... AnonMoos (talk) 11:31, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you would say "the mother has borne many children", not "born". Equinox ◑ 12:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "borne" is the general past/passive participle of "to bear", while the spelling "born" is restricted in usage to certain specific contexts. However, "born" is not "rare"[sic], so that some other wording needs to be found. AnonMoos (talk) 02:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The tag "(rare)" is not referring to the word "born" in general, but only to its usage as a past participle of "bear". --WikiTiki89 02:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Dude, we've already gone over this several times without you being able to cast much useful light on the subject. Unless you're claiming that "born" in "was born" is somehow not a real past/passive participle (something which you would need to explain or justify at greater length), "born" is simply NOT "rare"[sic] as a past/passive participle, and in fact the claim of its "rareness"[sic] is the next thing to blatant flagrant nonsense. It is contextually restricted but not "rare"[sic] -- "rare"[sic] is an extremely unfortunate word which does not usefully clarify anything with respect to this particular usage. If you are able to actually meaningfully address the topic under discussion, then please do so, but otherwise do not re-add unhelpful and inaccurate material to the dictionary entry. AnonMoos (talk) 03:12, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

"Born" is also used as an active past participle. Ngramming phrases like "had born(e) a child", "has born(e) a son", etc., shows that the spelling "born" is used 5-10% of the time. I don't know if such a high number (in published texts) can still count as a mere misspelling. (I for one purposely use "born" whenever it means "given birth" because I think the standard rule makes no sense, but apparently I'm not the only one.)

"please bear with me" and "can't bear the heat" listed under same sense

It says "To put up with something". One example includes a "with" and the other doesn't; so there is actually some difference in transitivity and I'm not sure both examples belong in that place. Thoughts? Equinox ◑ 22:48, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Bear: a noun meaning burden?

I added a noun part of speech to the second etymology section, as in "The window was a bear to open." I can't find any formal references for this usage. Is this right? --Bluehavana (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, in Google Books I can find e.g. "a real bear to refinish" [1]. But I wonder which etymology is correct. It could be the animal (cf. it was a real pain; it was a monster of a thing; and stereotype of angry bears with sore heads etc.). Equinox ◑ 19:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Equinox, Bluehavana: I assumed that it was after the animal. The dictionaries in which I have found this meaning all list it under the "animal" section ([2], [3], [4]), so on that basis I am moving our entry. Mihia (talk) 23:10, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Bear arms

The "verb" section doesn't include the meaning of "bear arms", like on w:en:Right to keep and bear arms.--MisterSanderson (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

It's basically a slight extension of the "to carry" meaning. Not sure about the definition "to be equipped with" which someone has added to the page... AnonMoos (talk) 09:57, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

bring to bear

What meaning is used in bring to bear? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Probably "press or impinge upon" or one of its subsenses. May be metaphorical. Equinox ◑ 05:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

loaded for bear

What meaning is used in loaded for bear? --Backinstadiums (talk) 00:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The animal. Like a shotgun loaded. Equinox ◑ 05:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Soviet Russia?

Soviet Russia (and perhaps modern Russia?) has sometimes been poetically termed "the bear", e.g.

• 2002, Miguel A. Faria, Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise (page 102)

  Khrushchev knew the U.S. possessed an overwhelming nuclear superiority over the Soviets, including better submarines and the Jupiter rockets in Turkey, strategically placed in the soft underbelly of the Soviet bear.

Equinox ◑ 04:02, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciations

FWIW: the 1933 OED says the ursine mammal bear is pronounced bēᵊɹ (/bɛəɹ/), barley bear is bīᵊɹ (/bɪəɹ/), a pillow bear is pronounced bēᵊɹ, bīᵊɹ, and the verb is bēᵊɹ. The EDD says the ursine bear can be, in various dialects, be pronounced either /bɛə(ɹ)/ or /bɪə(ɹ)/, barley bear is either /bɛɹ/, /bɛə(ɹ)/ or /bɪə(ɹ)/, bear in the sense of a door-mat is /bɛə(ɹ)/, bear in the sense of a "large block of sandstone, which lies at the bottom and forms the base of the furnace in ironworks" is /bɛə(ɹ)/ or /bɪə(ɹ)/, the "carry" verb is in various dialects /bɛɹ/, /bɛə(ɹ)/ or /bɪə(ɹ)/, and a pillow-bere (NB spelling) is /bɪə(ɹ)/. - -sche (discuss) 17:45, 25 August 2023 (UTC)