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Bar

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bar¹

  • /bɑː/ UK
  • /bɑɹ/ US
  • [bɑɹ] US
  • [bɑ˞] US
  • /bäː/ Australia

Sounds like baa, bah (in some pronunciations) · Rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Vulgar Latin *barra

Old French barrebor.

Middle English barre

English bar

From Middle English barre, from Old French barre (“beam, bar, gate, barrier”), from Vulgar Latin *barra, of uncertain origin. Doublet of barre.

noun bars

  1. countable, uncountable A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length. The window was protected by steel bars.
  2. countable, uncountable A solid metal object with uniform (round, square, hexagonal, octagonal or rectangular) cross-section; in the US its smallest dimension is ¹⁄₄ inch or greater, a piece of thinner material being called a strip. Ancient Sparta used iron bars instead of handy coins in more valuable alloy, to physically discourage the use of money.
  3. countable, uncountable A cuboid piece of any solid commodity. bar of chocolate
  4. countable, uncountable A broad shaft, band, or stripe. a bar of light
  5. countable, uncountable A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.
  6. countable, uncountable Any of various lines used as punctuation or diacritics, such as the pipe ⟨|⟩, fraction bar (as in 12), and strikethrough (as in Ⱥ), formerly (obsolete) including oblique marks such as the slash.
  7. countable, uncountable The sign indicating that the characteristic of a logarithm is negative, conventionally placed above the digit(s) to show that it applies to the characteristic only and not to the mantissa.
  8. countable, uncountable A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact an antiparticle).
  9. countable, uncountable A business selling alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises, or the premises themselves; a public house. The street was lined with all-night bars.
  10. countable, uncountable The counter of such premises. Step up to the bar and order a drink.
  11. countable, uncountable A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.
  12. broadly, countable, in compounds, uncountable Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage. a coffee bar
  13. countable, uncountable An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises. a burger bar
  14. countable, uncountable An establishment offering cosmetic services. a nail bar
  15. countable, uncountable An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity. The club has lifted its bar on women members.
  16. countable, uncountable Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier. Muſt I new bars to my own joy create?
  17. UK, countable, uncountable A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.
  18. UK, countable, uncountable The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.
  19. Philippines, US, countable, uncountable, usually The bar exam, the legal licensing exam. He's studying hard to pass the Bar this time; he's failed it twice before.
  20. countable, metonymically, uncountable Collectively, lawyers or the legal profession; specifically applied to barristers in some countries, but including all lawyers in others. He was called to the bar.
  21. countable, uncountable One of an array of bar-shaped symbols that display the level of something, such as wireless signal strength or battery life remaining. I don't have any bars in the middle of this desert.
  22. countable, uncountable A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.
  23. countable, in plural, slang, uncountable Hip-hop lyrics, especially ones written and delivered skillfully. That rapper there, yeah, he got bars.
  24. broadly, countable, in plural, slang, uncountable Something well-said or well-written. His musical journey, and this is a quote, is “a constant push and pull between self awareness and delusion”. That’s bars right there to be honest.
  25. countable, uncountable A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.
  26. countable, figuratively, uncountable Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation. to set the bar high/low
  27. countable, uncountable The crossbar. Composed play then saw Sam Ricketts nutmeg Ashley Cole before Taylor whipped a fine curling effort over Petr Cech's bar.
  28. countable, uncountable The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.
  29. countable, uncountable An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.
  30. countable, uncountable A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially
  31. countable, uncountable A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water; a formation extending across the mouth of a river or harbor or off a beach, and which may obstruct navigation. (FM 55-501). Travellers change at Batoum into a steamer which performs the service between that port and Poti, and which has a less draught of water to enable it to cross the bar of the river Rion.
  32. countable, uncountable One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess. On the fesse are two bars wavy azure for waterways.
  33. countable, uncountable A city gate, in some British place names. Temple Bar, London
  34. countable, uncountable A drilling or tamping rod.
  35. countable, uncountable A vein or dike crossing a lode.
  36. countable, uncountable A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.
  37. countable, uncountable The part of the crust of a horse's hoof which is bent inwards towards the frog at the heel on each side, and extends into the centre of the sole.
  38. countable, in plural, uncountable The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.
  39. countable, slang, uncountable A measure of drugs, typically one ounce. Tell Sick Boy tae gie us a bell if ye see um. The bastard owes us twenty fuckin bar.
  40. countable, uncountable A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.

bar²

  • /bɑː/ UK
  • /bɑɹ/ US
  • [bɑɹ] US
  • [bɑ˞] US
  • /bäː/ Australia

Sounds like baa, bah (in some pronunciations) · Rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)

Where it comes from

From Middle English barren, from Old French barrer, from Medieval Latin barrare (“to bar”), from the noun. Cognate to Occitan barrar, Spanish barrar, Portuguese barrar.

Preposition properly imperative of the verb. Compare barring.

verb bars · barring · barred

  1. transitive To obstruct the passage of (someone or something). Our way was barred by a huge rockfall.
  2. transitive To prohibit. I couldn't get into the nightclub because I had been barred.
  3. transitive To lock or bolt with a bar. to bar the door
  4. To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe. I lived in a hut in the yard. To be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant’s office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight.

preposition

  1. Except, other than, besides. He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife.

adverb

  1. not comparable Denotes the minimum odds offered on other horses not mentioned by name. Leg At Each Corner is at 3/1, Lost My Shirt 5/1, and it's 10/1 bar.

bar³

  • /bɑː/ UK
  • /bɑɹ/ US
  • [bɑɹ] US
  • [bɑ˞] US
  • /bäː/ Australia

Sounds like baa, bah (in some pronunciations) · Rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάρος (báros, “weight”), coined circa 1900.

noun bars

  1. A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, slightly less than atmospheric pressure at sea level.

bar⁴

  • /bɑː/ UK
  • /bɑɹ/ US
  • [bɑɹ] US
  • [bɑ˞] US
  • /bäː/ Australia

Sounds like baa, bah (in some pronunciations) · Rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)

Where it comes from

From foobar, a phonetic respelling of FUBAR.

noun

  1. uncountable A metasyntactic variable representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo. Suppose we have four objects, foo, bar, baz and quux.

bar⁵

  • /bɑː/ UK
  • /bɑɹ/ US
  • [bɑɹ] US
  • [bɑ˞] US
  • /bäː/ Australia

Sounds like baa, bah (in some pronunciations) · Rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)

Where it comes from

Variant of bear.

noun bars

  1. US, archaic, dialectal A bear. ‘You see,’ continued he, ‘my wife wanted a new bar-skin petticoat, and Sal, that gal of our’n, kept pesterin me ’bout some bar’s ile to slick her har with, (as the fellers didn’t like to see her mommock her head with taller,) so as how I couldn’t rest. Well, one Sunday morning, I took ‘Brown Betsy,’

Bar⁶

proper noun the Bar

  1. alternative Alternative spelling of bar.bar

Bar⁷

Where it comes from

From Serbo-Croatian Bȃr.

proper noun

  1. A town and municipality of Montenegro. The railroad from Belgrade to Bar on the Adriatic coast negotiates 234 bridges and 254 tunnels in its tortuous 295-mile route.

Bar⁸

Where it comes from

Shortenings.

proper noun

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Barbara.
  2. A diminutive of the male given name Barry. Barry is there, playing Ms. Pac-Man. "Hey, Bar." "Well, have you met him yet?" Barry asks.

Bar⁹

Where it comes from

From Ukrainian Бар (Bar).

proper noun

  1. A town in Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine.

Bar10

Where it comes from

From בר.

proper noun

  1. A male or female given name from Hebrew. Defense Minister Israel Katz paid a visit to released hostage Bar Kuperstein, who was an off-duty soldier when he was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova party near Re’im on October 7, 2023.

BAR11

proper noun

  1. abbreviation, acronym Acronym of Bureau of Automotive Repair

noun BARs

  1. abbreviation, initialism Initialism of Browning automatic rifle.Browning automatic rifle

adjective more BAR · most BAR

  1. abbreviation, acronym, slang Acronym of bright, alert, responsive.bright Anytime you notice your horse is ADR instead of BAR, it's time to get on the phone to your vet.

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