The Collaborative International Dictionary
Visor \Vis"or\, n. [OE. visere, F. visi[`e]re, fr. OF. vis. See Visage, Vision.] [Written also visar, visard, vizard, and vizor.]
A part of a helmet, arranged so as to lift or open, and so show the face. The openings for seeing and breathing are generally in it.
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A mask used to disfigure or disguise. ``My very visor began to assume life.''
--Shak.My weaker government since, makes you pull off the visor.
--Sir P. Sidney. The fore piece of a cap, projecting over, and protecting the eyes.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"mask," 1550s, altered form of vysar, viser (see visor), by influence of words in -ard. Figurative use from 1570s; common 17c. Also applied to the person with the masks, and used as a verb meaning "to conceal." Related: Vizarded; vizarding.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context archaic English) A mask worn to disguise or protect the face. 2 A pretense
Wikipedia
Vizard is a surname of Norman origin, derived from "Wisc(h)ard", from the old Norman/French personal name Guisc(h)ard.
Notable people with the surname include:
- Brian Vizard (born 1959), former American rugby union player
- Steve Vizard (born 1956), Australian media personality, businessman and philanthropist
- Ted Vizard (1889–1973), former Welsh footballer and manager
- Walter Vizard (1861–1929), English cricketer
Vizard or visard may refer to:
- Visard, a mask worn by women in 16th- and 17th-century fashion
- Vizard (surname)
- Vizard, characters in the Bleach manga and anime
Usage examples of "vizard".
I think of my patient who has now been with me for almost three years, Prudence Vizard, who seems to have a travelling malady, for it has roamed from her back to her left leg, then soared upward to the back of her neck and is now bivouacking for a while in her right arm.
Melancholy, for she is none of those things and seems to have a pretty satisfactory sexual life, so long as Vizard does not jog the suffering place in his infrequently permitted visitations to her privy parts.
But how were we to be cautious when Prudence Vizard was so determinedly incautious?
I think Father Charlie curses the day he ever saw Prudence Vizard, to whom he has been very decent.
Heads of an assembly of ragamuffins and rising above them the head of Prudence Vizard, done to the life and exhorting the crowd.
He did, however, follow it up with a report of what Prudence Vizard called her Holy Hour, which came every day at Angelus and was drawing larger and larger groups.
I detested the whole business and gave Chips all the help I could in getting some legal restraint on the Vizard assemblies.
Daubigny, the humbug-man, came frequently and he was a regular attendant after Prudence Vizard asserted herself.
Under his urging, I suppose, the police found that Prudence Vizard was transgressing some city regulation about the assemblage of crowds numbering more than twenty-five people, without a licence, and police appeared at her Angelus services for several days in succession and dispersed them.
He knew that the mind which even best repels temptation first urged hath seldom power to resist the same suggestion, if daily--dropping, unwearying--presenting itself in every form, obtruded in every hour, losing its horror by custom, and finding in the rebellious bosom itself its smoothest vizard and most alluring excuse.
He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.
Two tears escaped from beneath the vizard of the stranger, as he looked down upon the changed form of the man upon the couch.
Sir Ocher laughed aloud and clanged down the vizard on his gay young face.
On his left, Sir Ocher laughed aloud and clanged down the vizard on his gay young face.
Shakespeare had seen that blank vizard more times than he could count, these years since the Armada landed.