Revising Bear in the OED

You might think that a definition of the word "bear" would be fairly straightforward. After all, everyone knows what a bear is. Sure, there are different types of bears, but a bear is a bear, isn't it? Well, not if you are a lexicographer working for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which recently revised its definition of the word.

In an entry on the OED's blog, several revision editors explain the process they went through to revise the entry. It's quite a story.

Revising the science senses of bear makes one aware of just how many different types of bears there are roaming around the OED! In terms of animals, ‘bear’ is used to refer to the usual suspects – black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, etc. – which belong to the scientific family Ursidae. But it is also used to refer to other animals that remind us of bears in some way – koala bears, woolly bears, water bears, even anteaters… So when we revised the entry bear, we needed to make sure we covered both these usages of it, which gave us senses 1a and 1b. These two senses are where we cover, or include links to, bears whose names follow the pattern ‘X bear’, or who are referred to simply as bears.

The Compounds section C2 (b) covers a number of different plants and animals whose names follow the pattern ‘bear X’. A bear animalcule is a tardigrade, or water bear, and it has stumpy little legs, claws, and a stocky body. Bear worm refers to a fuzzy caterpillar. Bears like to eat the acorns produced by the bear oak. Bear’s ear has leaves (somewhat) shaped like a bear’s ear. Many of these types of compounds have more than one sense, and are treated as separate entries in the OED. It seems that lots of plants and animals are similar to bears, or maybe it’s that bears are so memorable we can’t help naming other things after them.