Definition of "teddy bear" [teddy bear]

• A child's toy bear, usually stuffed with soft material and covered with furlike plush. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Nick examined the fan, then pushed two hatboxes and a moth-eaten teddy bear aside to find the cord."
• "Details of the anatomy can be spectacular in their sculptural intricacy: the male drinker, a summer moth of woodland rides which at first looks like a teddy bear with a handlebar moustache, wears its antennae branched into delicate combs, like the cow-catchers on old American steam locomotives."
• "Like a child who clings to a teddy bear well into adolescence, or a lottery winner who repaints the old house, he would cling to the familiar and be slow to embrace what is new."