Folk-tale character, popularized by the writer Charles Perrault in France about 1697, and historically identified with Gilles de Rais, a 15th-century French nobleman executed for murdering children. Bluebeard murdered six wives for disobeying his command not to enter a locked room, but was himself killed before he could murder the seventh.
The legend inspired operas by Béla Bartók and Paul Dukas.
(Fairy tale) A monstrous villain who marries seven women; he kills the first six for disobedience.