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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bare.

Minimal; that is or are just sufficient.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/bɛə/Received-Pronunciation/bɛː/Received-Pronunciation/bɛɹ/General-American/bɛɚ/General-American
  1. Minimal; that is or are just sufficient.

    a bare majority
  2. Naked, uncovered.

  3. Having no supplies.

    a room bare of furniture
    The cupboard was bare.
  4. Having no decoration.

    The walls of this room are bare — why not hang some paintings on them?
  5. Having had what usually covers (something) removed.

    The trees were left bare after the swarm of locusts devoured all the leaves.
  6. A lot or lots of.

    Multicultural-London-English · Yorkshire · not-comparable · slang
    It's taking bare time.
  7. With head uncovered; bareheaded.

  8. Without anything to cover up or conceal one's thoughts or actions; open to view; exposed.

  9. Mere; without embellishment.

    figuratively
    bare essentials; bare necessities
  10. Threadbare, very worn.

  11. Not insured.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English bare, bar, from Old English bær (“bare, naked, open”), from Proto-West Germanic *baʀ, from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare, naked”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰosós, from *bʰos- (“bare, barefoot”). Cognate with Scots bare, bair (“bare”), Saterland Frisian bar (“bare”), West Frisian baar (“bare”), Dutch bar (“bare”), German bar (“bare”), Swedish bar (“bare”), Icelandic ber (“bare”), Lithuanian basas (“barefoot, bare”), Polish bosy (“barefoot”).

adv/bɛə/Received-Pronunciation/bɛː/Received-Pronunciation/bɛɹ/General-American/bɛɚ/General-American
  1. Barely.

    dialectal
  2. Very; significantly.

    Multicultural-London-English · slang
    That pissed me off bare.
    That's bare stupid.
  3. Without a condom.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bare, bar, from Old English bær (“bare, naked, open”), from Proto-West Germanic *baʀ, from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare, naked”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰosós, from *bʰos- (“bare, barefoot”). Cognate with Scots bare, bair (“bare”), Saterland Frisian bar (“bare”), West Frisian baar (“bare”), Dutch bar (“bare”), German bar (“bare”), Swedish bar (“bare”), Icelandic ber (“bare”), Lithuanian basas (“barefoot, bare”), Polish bosy (“barefoot”).

noun/bɛə/Received-Pronunciation/bɛː/Received-Pronunciation/bɛɹ/General-American/bɛɚ/General-American
  1. The surface, the (bare) skin.

  2. Surface; body; substance.

  3. That part of a roofing slate, shingle, tile, or metal plate, which is exposed to the weather.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English bare, bar, from Old English bær (“bare, naked, open”), from Proto-West Germanic *baʀ, from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare, naked”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰosós, from *bʰos- (“bare, barefoot”). Cognate with Scots bare, bair (“bare”), Saterland Frisian bar (“bare”), West Frisian baar (“bare”), Dutch bar (“bare”), German bar (“bare”), Swedish bar (“bare”), Icelandic ber (“bare”), Lithuanian basas (“barefoot, bare”), Polish bosy (“barefoot”).

verb/bɛə/Received-Pronunciation/bɛː/Received-Pronunciation/bɛɹ/General-American/bɛɚ/General-American
  1. To uncover; to reveal.

    figuratively · sometimes · transitive
    She bared her teeth at him.
    The tabloid newspaper promised to bare all.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English baren, from Old English barian, from Proto-Germanic *bazōną (“to bare, make bare”).

verb/bɛə/Received-Pronunciation/bɛː/Received-Pronunciation/bɛɹ/General-American/bɛɚ/General-American
  1. simple past of bear

    form-of · obsolete · past
Where this word comes from

Inflected forms.

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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.