bar.
A solid, more or less rigid object of metal or wood with a uniform cross-section smaller than its length.
Meaning & usage
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.
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.
We are expecting a carload of bar tomorrow.
A cuboid piece of any solid commodity.
bar of chocolate
bar of soap
A broad shaft, band, or stripe.
a bar of light
a bar of colour
A long, narrow drawn or printed rectangle, cuboid or cylinder, especially as used in a bar code or a bar chart.
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.
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.
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).
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.
The counter of such premises.
Step up to the bar and order a drink.
A counter, or simply a cabinet, from which alcoholic drinks are served in a private house or a hotel room.
Premises or a counter serving any type of beverage.
a coffee bar
a juice bar
An informal establishment selling food to be consumed on the premises.
a burger bar
a local fish bar
An establishment offering cosmetic services.
a nail bar
a brow bar
An official order or pronouncement that prohibits some activity.
The club has lifted its bar on women members.
Anything that obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an obstruction; a barrier.
A dividing line (physical or notional) in the chamber of a legislature beyond which only members and officials may pass.
The railing surrounding the part of a courtroom in which the judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses stay.
The bar exam, the legal licensing exam.
He's studying hard to pass the Bar this time; he's failed it twice before.
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.
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.
A vertical line across a musical staff dividing written music into sections, typically of equal durational value.
One of those musical sections. Hip-hop lyrics, especially ones written and delivered skillfully.
That rapper there, yeah, he got bars.
One of those musical sections. Something well-said or well-written.
A horizontal pole that must be crossed in the high jump and pole vault.
Any level of achievement regarded as a challenge to be overcome; a standard or expectation.
to set the bar high/low
to raise the bar
The crossbar.
The central divider between the inner and outer table of a backgammon board, where stones are placed if they are hit.
An addition to a military medal, on account of a subsequent act.
A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially
A ridge or succession of ridges of sand or other substance; especially: 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).
One of the ordinaries in heraldry; a diminutive of a fess.
A city gate, in some British place names.
Temple Bar, London
A drilling or tamping rod.
A vein or dike crossing a lode.
A gatehouse of a castle or fortified town.
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.
The space between the tusks and grinders in the upper jaw of a horse, in which the bit is placed.
A measure of drugs, typically one ounce.
A small, tablet-shaped dose of Xanax, typically containing two milligrams and able to be split into quarters.
Where this word 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.
To obstruct the passage of (someone or something).
Our way was barred by a huge rockfall.
To prohibit.
I couldn't get into the nightclub because I had been barred.
To lock or bolt with a bar.
to bar the door
To imprint or paint with bars, to stripe.
Where this word 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.
Except, other than, besides.
He invited everyone to his wedding bar his ex-wife.
Where this word 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.
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.
Where this word 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.
A non-SI unit of pressure equal to 100,000 pascals, slightly less than atmospheric pressure at sea level.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάρος (báros, “weight”), coined circa 1900.
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.
Where this word comes from
From foobar, a phonetic respelling of FUBAR.
A bear.
Where this word comes from
Variant of bear.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.