An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Bart

by Friedrich Kluge

Bart, masculine, ‘beard, comb, barb,’ from the equivalent Middle High German bart, Old High German bart, masculine; compare Dutch baard, Anglo-Saxon and English beard. For this Teutonic word, the existence of which is proved by the ethnical term Langobarden to be extremely remote, skegg was used in Scandinavian. The pre-Teutonic form of Gothic *barda, feminine, was, in accordance with the permutation of consonants, bhardhâ — which is also presumed by Old Slovenian brada (with the usual loss of aspiration and metathesis of the r), and Latin barba (with b for dh when next to r, compare rot, Wort; the initial b is from bh, as in Backe; in other cases initial bh is Latin f). Compare also Lithuanian barzdà, ‘beard’ (for *bardà).