vandyke

• Van Dyke, Van Dyck, Vandyck, Vandyke

Named after 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck.

vandyke (plural vandykes)

1. An edge with ornamental triangular points.
2. A style of facial hair which has both a mustache and goatee but with all cheek hair shaven, popular in Europe in the 17th century.

   Synonym: Vandyke beard

   • 1953, Saul Bellow, chapter 5, in The Adventures of Augie March, New York: Viking Press, →OCLC:

     He was still an old galliard, with white Buffalo Bill vandyke, and he swanked around, still healthy of flesh, in white suits, looking things over with big sex-amused eyes.

   • 2009 May 11, Eric Kaplan, Richard Rosenstock, “The Monopolar Expedition”, in The Big Bang Theory, season 2, episode 23, spoken by Sheldon Cooper:

     Raj, you will be painting sideburns and a Van Dyke on a six-inch figurine of Legolas the elf.

3. A style of dress or collar similar to those in Anthony van Dyck's portrait paintings; a small round cape, the border ornamented with points and indentations.

vandyke (third-person singular simple present vandykes, present participle vandyking, simple past and past participle vandyked)

1. (transitive) To fit or furnish with a vandyke; to form with points or scallops like a vandyke.
   • 1898, Rudyard Kipling, The Day's Work‎, volume 1:

     Again I searched, and found a most diabolical pair of cock-nosed shears, capable of vandyking the interiors of elephants.

   • 1898, Stanley John Weyman, The Castle Inn‎:

     The travellers had not advanced many paces towards them before the peaks of three gables rose above them, vandyking the sky and docking the last sparse branches of the elms. Mr. Thomasson's exclamation of relief, as he surveyed the building, was cut short by the harsh rattle of a chain, followed by the roar of a watch-dog, as it bounded from the kennel; in a second a horrid raving and baying, as of a score of hounds, awoke the night.

• Van Dyke beard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia