The hair that grows on a guy's face is called his beard. When he lets it grow long, he is said to have a beard. Hair that grows on the upper lip is known as a mustache. Beards and mustaches are out of style in the United States, where most guys shave their faces clean, but a great many American men wore beards and mustaches until about fifty years ago. 

After the war, many American men used to wear this type of beard, which they called "burnsides." This beard is named after Anthony Vandyke,moustache wax the great painter of Holland, who often painted men with short, pointed beards. 

This pointed tuft of hair on the chin came to be called an "imperial," and is still popular with some European guys. Paintings of Jesus regularly show him with a short beard. The man who wears a beard is usually proud of it. To pull a man's beard is commonly a deadly insult. In the Bible, there is a narrative of how David, king of Jerusalem, sent friendly messages to Hanun, king of the Ammonites, a nearby tribe. Hanun shaved off half the beards of David's messengers and sent them back to their king in disgrace. With their beards half cut off the men were too embarrassed to return to the king, so David let them stay in a spot called Jericho until their beards grew back. Because of this insult to his messengers and himself, David made war on the Ammonites and ruined them.read more