BEARDED Having had one’s beard plucked or pulled as an act of defiance, contradiction, or contempt.

“After such a voyage, the troubled and angry waters, which once had seemed terrible and not to be trifled with, appeared tamed and subdued; they have been bearded and worried in their channels, pricked and whipped into submission with the spike-pole and paddle, gone through and through with impunity, and all their spirit and their danger taken out of them, and the most swollen and impetuous rivers seemed but play things henceforth.”

-Henry David Thoreau

(Describing successful navigation of a difficult river)